Kino Lorber's Blu-ray release of Tamra Davis' 1993 hip-hop comedy revisits Universal Pictures' raunchy, foul-mouthed (and tentatively Saturday Night Live-connected) satire, but it still remains a case of the bullet-clip half empty or half full. Some savvy spoofing of the gangster-rap culture is dead on and earned the material a cult following, some just arrive DOA.
CB4 (standing for "Cell Block Four") is the baddest, meanest rap-music group. Reigning rappers Ice-T and Ice Cube (as themselves in amusing cameos) despair they've lost their street cred compared to the ferocious trio, with their prison garb and lyrics about violence, lawbreaking, and degrading women. Chris Elliot plays a white documentary filmmaker—who was the cheapest to hire—making a "rapumentary" about CB4.
After narrowly escaping a drive-by shooting, CB4's frontman Albert (Chris Rock) finally opens up to him about the ensemble's true history. Actually, Albert and his bandmates (Deezer D and Allen Payne) are not hardcore felons but young people from the black middle class, who won a recording career only after stealing the persona and name of drug-dealing club owner Gusto (a showy role for Charlie Murphy, before his breakout success in Dave Chappelle's TV show). Now Gusto wrongly blames Albert for informing him to the cops and wants revenge.
While a Bill Bennett/Patrick Buchanan-style conservative spokesman (Phil Hartman) demonizes CB4 in the media, internal dissension also takes a toll on the musicians. Many subplots go nowhere, though, and an uptempo concert ending rounds out the loose story. In comparison to Rusty Cundieff's witty rap-music mockumentary Fear of a Black Hat, in release around the same time, this comes across as a little off-key,
Though in their commentary track here, international film critics Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson (who, in satire-worthy "woke" fashion, apologize profoundly for being white) cite the feature's perceptive jabs against the commercialization of hip-hop and the "commodification" of the black experience. They also emphasize the travails of Tamra Davis, a woman director doing a black-oriented mainstream motion picture, when both were heartbreakingly scarce (originally Ben Stiller was a suggested helmer!).
In other extras, co-writer Nelson George (a former Billboard editor) nicely describes the evolution of the project and a film shoot against the backdrop of the LA riots. Tamra Davis also has an illuminating sit-down interview, and there are a few related Afro-comic trailers.
So, comedy misfire or underappreciated takedown of musicdom's hyper-macho "superblackness" and misogyny? You make the call, but one could argue that Leprechaun in the Hood delivered similar laughs (and with more Ice-T). A strong optional purchase. (Aud: P)