Gimme the Loot

This debut indie by young New Yorker Adam Leon has energy, humour and ideas to spare. What ‘Gimme the Loot’ also has going for it is a very strong sense of time and place. Two frustrated and ballsy teens, Malcolm (Ty Hickson) and Sofia (Tashiana Washington), live for graffiti, and it’s their aim to tag the big apple sculpture in the Mets baseball stadium, but first they need to find $500 to pay someone to let them in. Which gives Leon a brilliant excuse to tour little-known parts of New York over two balmy summer days – and the street-level exploring and in-the-moment attitude of the film inevitably recalls Spike Lee’s ‘Do the Right Thing’. But, for all its episodic pleasures (the highlight is when Malcolm tries to rob a rich white girl and falls for her) ‘Gimme the Loot’ is also meandering and a little shallow. And even at 79 minutes it feels a little too long for what’s essentially the film equivalent of a short story.