A wannabe hip-hop star is kidnapped into slavery in a film that beats a well-trodden path around LA’s scuzzy underbelly
Apart from
Google Street View employees’ driveways, the LA “underbelly” must be the most filmed place on the planet, from Kiss Me Deadly to Training Day. That capital of spiritual degradation is where this scratchy low-budget drama is bound, as Angeleno wannabe Mandy (Wittie Hughes) meets-cute with a white-boy
Rapper on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame and gets wrecked with him at a pool party.
Mandy’s hopes of stardom take a nosedive when she wakes up on a plastic-sheathed mattress in an anonymous low-rise, apparently delivered into human slavery. She has become the “property” of Shadow, a tooth-grilled pimp who appears to have taken James Franco’s “Look at all my shit” soliloquy in Spring Breakers as sound career advice. His sidekick is a mute never seen without a gold Anonymous mask. Director Scott Altman keeps Mandy locked in her room and on strict exploitation-movie rations – she is raped, and cosies up to winsome fellow hooker Lola (Roshema Purfoy) for consolatory spliffs and lesbian cuddles. She alchemises the pain into rap, which finally provides her with a way out.