Waist Deep

Tyrese Gibson plays an ex-con security guard named O2 who decides to take the straight and narrow until one day he’s carjacked in broad daylight and his young son is whisked away while asleep on the back seat. With the help of a mouthy bimbo (with a heart) named Coco, he goes on a rampage of bullets and blunts to retrieve the little perisher from local gang boss, Meat (where do they come up with these names?) played by rapper The Game. Pitched as a modern day reworking of ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ (the pair rob three banks while wearing hats), it’s a film which is lacking in fundamental cinematic traits, not least a story, some humour, even the tiniest modicum of old-fashioned imagination. Director Vondie Curtis-Hall does well to prove that his last film, the Mariah Carey puff piece ‘Glitter’, was indeed no fluke and that he really is a dismal filmmaker. From its non-committal title downwards – we’re a bit worse than ankle deep, but not quite neck deep – the film includes a final shot that is almost surreal in its implausibility. ‘Waist Deep’? More like ‘Deep Waste’.