Movie Review – “Gang Related”

Release Date: October 8, 1997

Production Companies: Orion Pictures

It has come to this. I had covered all of Tupac’s other films, such as “Juice,” “Poetic Justice,” “Above the Rim,” “Bullet,” and “Gridlock’d.” So this had been quite a project for me. What separates this film from the others was that this was the first time I had watched it. That’s right. I had seen the other ones before, though “Bullet” and “Gridlock’d” had been once before and the first-time viewings were a long time ago. This one, however, I remember hearing about it. I had my chances but never got around to it. But with me doing this series of cover Tupac’s films, I had to watch it eventually.

Now that I have seen it, where do I stand with it?

Going into it, I had a feeling what I was getting myself into. While I hadn’t actually seen this movie before, I had read the plot synopsis and read that it was a crime drama about dirty cops covering up a murder. The plot involves detectives Divinci (James Belushi) and Rodriguez (Tupac Shakur) killing a drug dealer early in the film, only to find out he was an undercover DEA agent. The two crooked cops had to come up with the perfect alibi to cover up the murder. So they try to find some people to pin the rap on and also turn to a stripper named Cynthia (Lela Rochon), whom Divinci had an affair with, to help them out on this cover-up.

A lot of the movie has the plan fall apart as expected, but just how things fell apart kept me engaged. I had a feeling that Rodriguez, while dirty, was more sensible and wanted no part of the plan after a while. While I have seen plot elements like this before, I think they were executed well.

Belushi impressed me with his performance. His career has had its ups and downs, whether it was doing some unfunny comedies (I have seen some to which I can make an exception, however) and some serious films here and there. I do recall finding the 1988 film “Red Heat” with Arnold Schwarzenegger to be underrated and he did fine as the comedic cop as some comedic elements were more subtle than overt. In this film, however, he gave a chilling performance. His portrayal was rather terrifying as the film progressed.

While Tupac was one of the leads, I can’t say he was the focus for the most part. While he did fine in the role, there was not a lot of focus on his character. Most of the film’s plot focused on Divinci as it showed he was cheating on his wife and was also the one behind the plan. We didn’t know much about Rodriguez. Not to say Pac didn’t do well because these scenes showed that he had range. In fact, when you look at the two films that came out after his death, he didn’t play street thugs (“Poetic Justice” could be argued as he wasn’t a thug in that film), so he showed he had enough range to branch in some roles. Here are some examples:

One thing I will say about these scenes, and another that came after this one, is that it’s hard to watch when you know how he was killed. As a matter of fact, this movie was filmed in the summer of 1996. It wrapped up in August and then not long after that in September, he was murdered. It’s uncomfortable to see.

Another thing I should mention is that when I saw the opening credits, I noticed Dennis Quaid was listed. It took me a bit to finally figure out who he was in this movie. It was not until an interrogation scene that I had to look closely. Being that he portrayed a hobo, I could see how he was made up to look that way with the long hair and beard but then came when he had a haircut and shave.

I was at the edge of my seat for most of the film but the gripe I had was with the ending. I felt like not only it was rushed when filming but also had some rewrites. Another thing that I found confusing was that one prominent character was seen at the end all cleaned up and working again. This was supposed to be four months later. I don’t think that is enough time to get some skills back after being homeless and having mental issues. It would take more time to relearn such skills and a lot more time before one is ready to work again. Then you have the sudden ending. Maybe I should read the script to see how things went.

I would have to say that this is an underrated crime drama. The performances were done well. It had a good script for the most part and the overall tone didn’t feel too bleak. As for this being Tupac’s last film, because of his untimely demise, no one can know for certain where his career would have gone. There were rumors that he wanted to do a “Star Wars” film considering the first prequel was in development in the mid-1990s. There has been speculation that he was considered to play Mace Windu but then I had read that the original concept for that character was different. Like I had said before, this film and “Gridlock’d” were good examples of him branching out into different roles. While he was a dirty cop here, I wonder if he would have played a good cop at some point. No one will ever know.

Where do I stand with all of these films? Having watched six of his films for my series of reviews, I have to say that Tupac Shakur was indeed a talented man. I will admit that while I do like his music, I was never one of those fans who act like he is the single greatest rapper of all time and anyone who disagrees is wrong. I do admit that he left a mark on the hip-hop industry and there is a reason he is still talked about to this day. As for him as an actor, he was one of the better examples of rapper-turned-actors, though you could also say he was a rapper-actor who excelled at both. Yes, his more common roles were as street thugs when you look at “Juice,” “Above the Rim,” and “Bullet.” The other three films showed he had some range to do other types of roles. Yes, while I mentioned that “Poetic Justice” was debatable, he wasn’t a thug in that film. He was a mailman and for the majority of the film, Lucky was just someone who wanted to make a career in music. There was some depth to him that showed he wasn’t a one-dimensional character. Being that he had done six films, half of them he portrayed a thug and the other half were different roles. When you look at other rappers turned actors, whether it’s the likes of Ice-T, Ice Cube, DMX, etc., a lot of the time they played thugs but then there were times when they played different kinds of roles. The difference, however, was that Pac had an acting background prior to becoming a rapper. With “Juice” being his first film, the promotion for the film didn’t say anything like “starring popular rapper Tupac Shakur” or anything like that. If anything, “2Pacalypse Now” was released mere months before “Juice” was released. Plus, he wasn’t on the soundtrack to promote his music, either. So I think if he had lived, it’s possible he could have done more in acting.

That’s it for the series of Tupac films, but there is a side of me that may want to revisit something. Something I was not a fan of but I have the itch, even though I thought it was not a great biopic. I may get to that soon.