Hot Boyz

Overview: We were going to write something about how this is a hip-hop melodrama/ghetto Scarface/pointless car chase movie, but some jerk on IMDB beat us to the punchline "Master P's Theater" and now we're too angry to write a plot summary.

Directed By: Master P, 2000

The Case For: There are no spray painted Nerf guns, gratuitous nipple shots or hand puppets made from old gym socks and papier-mache, so this is pretty much Citizen Kane compared to the shit we usually watch.

The Case Against: Any movie where all of the "actors" are most well-known for their rapping credentials is already doomed to failure, but Hot Boyz proves that a healthy dose of B-movie veterans can make a bad situation even worse.

Admittedly, this movie is pretty far outside our usual fare, but trust us, we know a bad movie when we see one. Gary Busey and Jeff "Car Chases Rule Everything Around Me" Speakman are two surefire signs of a godawful trainwreck caught on film. The good news is that they're only in about 10% of the movie combined. The bad news is that doesn't stop their aura of failure from pulling down everything and everyone around them. Also, it's a hell of a 10%:

Alright, we can't prove that Gary and Jeff are responsible for all of the problems with Hot Boyz, but we have a hunch. See, Hot Boyz isn't really one movie, it's actually three movies:

• One movie about building a drug-peddling criminal empire by just gunning down every other gangster in Los Angeles in public and taking all their shit (so basically Scarface but skipping all the character development and just fast-forwarding through all the gangland hits)
• A second movie which is a crime drama about dirty cops, young romance, and Gary Busey being both good cop and bad cop and basically going Full Busey all over the place
• A third, completely different movie that mostly seems to exist only in Jeff Speakman's mind, in which he is the wise sensei of the L.A. streets and every car is a ticking time bomb waiting to spiral gracefully into the air and detonate without warning

You can probably see why we're a little suspicious about the influence of the two "stars" here. Helping them out in the supporting cast is a baffling mixture of B-movie veterans and rappers that just doesn't bode well for anything that's about to come. We never thought we'd see a cast list that bills C. Thomas Howell right next to C-Murder, but here we are.