Synopsis
An Ancient Game Becomes A Deadly Sport.
Two rival gangs fight for control of Frazier Park -- a deadly arena in competitive dance-fight video game "Beat-Beat Revolution."
2011 Directed by Brandon Trost, Jason Trost
Two rival gangs fight for control of Frazier Park -- a deadly arena in competitive dance-fight video game "Beat-Beat Revolution."
15
Ends on a white dude saying a nonsense badass catchphrase that is simultaneously an acronym for the 'n' word. No thanks.
The script felt like it was written by a racist 12 year old with a Call of Duty and GTA addiction. The dialogue was just a combination of racial slurs, swears and edgy insults. I really wish I hadn’t watched this shitshow of a movie.
I couldn't sell this movie to anyone who isn't on board with the premise, nor could I defend it against someone who doesn't think it's funny. But I thought it was fuckin' hilarious.
I would bet dollars to donuts that even people who initially find themselves amused might grow tired of what appears to be a one-trick pony. But The FP tweaks its tropes at every turn, and Lee Valmassy and Art Hsu deliver the script's idiotic jive dialog with such aplomb that I found myself laughing at everything they said.
Trost Bros., you are hereby wanted for the following crimes:
* A female lead that had the mentality of a child and the role of a sex prop.
* A randomly inserted trans* character as a cheap villain for the sake of "humor."
* A script that would make Tarantino say, "You use the n-word too much."
* A script that would make Tommy Wiseau say, "This makes no sense!"
* A movie that uses the n-word excessively and has zero black people in it. Not sure if that makes it worse or better, but it's still a crime.
* Lighting that makes your characters look like they were badly rendered in a modern video game somehow.
* Awful pacing issues.
* Horrible acting.
* Being boring.
And more, really. I've lost the energy to hate you further.
I think this movie is hilarious. Many will disagree, but they are wrong. Beyond everything else I think one of the funniest aspects of The FP is the realization that this whole movie takes place in an ordinary small town in the present day. It's just that it is focused on a small subculture of loser weirdos who formed gangs based around a rhythm arcade game. They are basically freakjob LARPers. That cracks me up to no end.
Alright, so to get this out of the way basically I was recommended this because I do a movie podcast and every time someone finds out they tell me about movies I should watch. It's always a fun little peak into their personality to see what someone will recommend me, and to be brutally honest a lot of has been "Oh you should watch Pixels, it's awesome", "Oh this random boxing movie is dope", "Check out this random thing on Netflix is" which is not to dismiss these. I end up watch listing ALL of them. Anyway all of this is to get to, someone brought up this film in that same way.
Enter me watching a Youtube movie about…
Allow me to relate to you the plot of The FP. JTRO and BTRO are brothers repping the 248, but when BTRO is killed while competing in a game of Beat Beat Revelation with rival gang leader L Dubba E, his brother must train hard to save the FP and bring back the ducks. Do I really need to say more? I was sold on this film the moment I say the trailer which featured characters straight out of an '80s action film fighting via a Dance Dance Revolution knock-off, and that is exactly what the film delivers. Don't get me wrong, it's a stupid, cheap, poorly written and acted, overly offensive piece of trash, but damn if I didn't…
With a plot about a Mad Max style wasteland world, where rival gangs fight over liquor licensing by having their best dancers face off on a rip-off of Dance Dance Revolution, there wasn't a chance I was going to skip past this and watch something else. Was it worth it though? Well, kind of.
For at least the first quarter of The FP, I was digging its strong style. There were a lot of white people dropping the n-word, but I thought it was all part of the satirical aesthetic. I watched as the big bro of the one gang was killed during a faux DDR dance-off and his younger brother subsequently quitting to become a lumberjack, only to be…
Starts off well enough, the premise is just up my alley in terms of being ludicrous, and the film (at least at the beginning) has enough momentum to keep me interested. But eventually the legitimately funny jokes (like the bit about the ducks or the woman who lazily exposes her breasts in the background of multiple shots) get weighed down by far too much (where any, at all, is too much) ironically used racist, sexist, and homophobic epithets. The scene with Stacy's dad is about as atonal, unfunny, and awful as they come.
Yeah, it's one note, but that's not the problem (as one note parody was done to perfection with, say, Airplane!). The problem is that the writing simply…
Did you chuckle when you read the synopsis of this film? Did you smile when you heard about a Warriors style movie in which gangs settled their differences through Dance Dance Revolution? Well do I have some good news for you... this movie never goes any further than that gag.
It's too ironically self conscious to work as a goofy Grindhouse style flick but it never goes any deeper than nudging you in the ribs and mocking its own premise. It's just a boring chore.