Prince

This gritty urban drama from director Sam de Jong is set in the drab apartment blocks of multicultural Amsterdam, far away from the middle-class pseudo-bohemian decadence of that European capital's tourist-gorged city center. The story centers on gangly, awkward Moroccan-born teen Ayoub (Ayoub Elasri), a budding gangbanger who hangs out along with his outcast adolescent buddies on the turf of the ruling neighborhood gang of twentysomething toughs—although these buffoonish ATV-riding hoodlums don't exactly evoke the Bloods and Crips. Ayoub lives quietly with his half-sister and depressive mother, who has long been divorced from Ayoub's heroin-addict father. Ayoub's conspicuous pubescent lust for Laura, girlfriend of one of the local gang members, begins to lead him down a dangerous path as he tries to lure her away from the number one bad boy in the ‘hood. Ayoub soon finds himself involved with a local Lamborghini-driving drug dealer—entering an initiation into a violent criminal underworld that gives Ayoub the courage to pursue Laura. Prince suffers a bit from a flat, unimaginative script—the central boy-gets-girl narrative here just doesn't hold up to close scrutiny—but this often gutsy slice of social realism is directed with bracing verve by de Jong. Recommended, overall. (M. Sandlin)