Green Goblin Reviews: Sleight
Well, this honestly kinda came outta nowhere, didn’t it? I’d only heard about Sleight two weeks prior to its mainstream release. When I saw the trailer, the tagline of “Chronicle meets Iron Man” really stuck with me. Being a fan of both of those things, I made sure to snag tickets right then and there. The idea of superhero origin stories coming from films that are not your typical action variety always tend to pique my interest. I feel it often gets overlooked that a lot of what makes the characters in comic books interesting can be less about the fight scenes and more about the actual writing. As a result, the films tend to focus more on the spectacle of seeing superpowered individuals perform impossible tasks for the obvious reason of putting butts in seats. The best films manage to find a solid balance between the two (Raimi’s Spider-man, Donner’s Superman, Nolan’s Batman, etc.), while the poorer ones tend to ignore plot coherency in favor of setting up bigger throwdowns and explosions (Batman V Superman, Green Lantern, X3). But every once in a while, you’ll find one that leans heavy in the other direction: a superhero film that leans more on the character development and coming to grips with what it all means, while the action takes a very noticeable backseat. And the only good examples of that that I can think of are the Unbreakable universe and….well…now this.
This film centers around a character named Bo (Jacob Latimore), a teenage engineering prodigee with a fondness for prestidigitation. Due to the deaths of his parents, he’s forced to put his own life on hold (including a scholarship for college) in order to take care of his kid sister Tina by any means possible; in his case, by selling club drugs at night from a charming-yet-sadistic druglord named Angelo (Dulé Hill) and panhandling during the day, by performing live street magic for LA tourists. Bo is clearly a smart kid in just his day-to-day routine. He knows his way around book-keeping for the product he sells, keeps his work life completely separate from his home life and knows how to take initiative when necessary to step up and impress his boss. Also, his engineering skills have gifted him the skill to create electromagnets that are dexterous enough to levitate small metal objects with a twitch of a finger; a tool so core to his sleight-of-hand magic tricks, that he’s forgone creating a suit and instead opted to surgically insert said magnetic setup directly into his own arms (Because…..”suffer for your art”, I guess). His life is going along about as smooth as you can when you’re a magnokinetic drug dealer, until he finds himself put into a position of having to enforce Angelo’s brutality firsthand one some new gangbangers by way of a cleaver and the laying down of a tarp. Clearly in over his head at this point, he begins to devise his way out of his current lifestyle without stepping on any raw nerves of his demented boss and continue to maintain a normal life for him and his sister. Plans go awry, and now Bo has to put his skills and keen intellect to work in order to stay alive.
The film isn’t trying to be a meta narrative on superheroes as a whole, like Kick-Ass or Watchmen. It’s a very small story with small stakes. Our hero isn’t trying to save the city or even take down Angelo. He’s literally just trying to get out of the life. This movie lives on the acting of its star and Latimore delivers a subdued performance for this subtle film. Bo, like a lot of performers, is very soft-spoken when not actually performing; he’s quiet, withdrawn and even bordering on a little anti-social. He manages to charm a girl with his magic act without missing a beat, but stumbles through his first date like he’s still in middle school. He puts on a face of confidence when he’s selling at night, but goes quiet after the sale is done and the buyer tries to engage in casual conversation. When things kick up in the third act, it isn’t until he’s able to return to his engineering comfort zone that he’s actually able to step up and get shit done.
Other roles are flawed, but functional. Hill’s Angelo might seem over-the-top until you view him in the frame of a street-level comic book villain, complete with two bumbling lackeys. The love interest of Holly (played by Seychelle Gabriel) provides support when things go sideways in the second act as well as an end-goal for Bo to strive for, but apart from that, feels like she lacks in personal autonomy somewhat. There’s also a neighbor played by Sasheer Zamata, who basically plays the role of a surrogate mother for Bo and Tina that feels like she was only added on to stand as a temporary voice of reason before the shit hits the fan.
My honest instinct is just to recommend that you go see this movie. It’s not a perfect film; the romance felt a little rushed, it can drag in parts and those going in wanting the kid to fly around the city at the end are going to be disappointed. Despite this, we really should push for variety like this to be rewarded if we expect superhero films to continue to stay fresh. There’s nothing else coming out this week that’s worth a damn anyway. The Circle is crap, the popcorn-munchers from the past couple of weeks will still be there next week and this is a small little film that needs to do better than I’m afraid it will do. Spectacle can be fun, but sometimes it’s important to eat your cinematic vegetables, so to speak
8/10
The superhero genre needs to expand into different forms of storytelling more often, if it leads to more films like this.