Review of Slam (2003) by Charles H — 22 May 2010

"Stunning, explosive...leaves the audience gasping for air.".

-Terry Lawson, DETROIT FREE PRESS.

"SLAM", by Marc Levin, is an exhilarating tale about a young man named Ray Joshua, played by Saul Williams, who grows up in the rough streets of D.C. Choosing to be a street pharmacist to survive; Ray gets too into the street life and gets caught in a drug deal. Being sent to jail for a mistake, he quickly finds survival through his talent for explosive poetic raps. Not only do his raps filled with wisdom let him stray from danger, but also widen the eyes of the people around him about the struggles they face and continue to face by their actions.

Throughout the film, the message that seems to be conveyed is that even when you are put in a situation, you can always overcome and rise above the struggle. As seen through Ray, although he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got busted and sent to jail, he found comfort in his powerful words and rose above violence and danger. He conveyed his message and thoughts to everyone who was willing to stop and listen, as seen when he recited "Amethyst Rocks" to his fellow jail mates before a fight was about to happen. He tried showing not only his poetic side but a side that sees that violence cannot solve anything, showing that the wrong road was what brought them to the cage they had to call their sanctuary.

The deeper theme that the movie reflects through the cracks of the struggle is how African Americans are being stereotyped and reliving everything that their ancestors struggled and died for. The violence and struggle that gang members in the ghettos are going through is the "if" to the murders and the sentences to jail which serves as the "then." In the past, African Americans were referred to as niggers and treated like dirt, which caused them to die from excessive work, before their time. In today's world African Americans are not going through the same struggles that their ancestors went through, but rather through the struggle of surviving from each other.

In the poem "Sha-Clack-Clack", Ray says that, "Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben are standing in the corners with rifles pointed at the heads of the little children." He is showing how slaves were treated and stereotyped for being different and were put in danger. He later says, "My niggaz are dying before their time, My niggaz are serving unjust time, My niggaz are dying because of.. time." Ray is trying to show that just like in the past, African Americans continue to die before their time through violence not from the system, but from each other.

My favorite part of the movie was of course the passionate part of Ray reciting the poem "Sha-Clack-Clack." Not only does Ray Williams get his thoughts across, but leave his audience with a wise thought of the reactions in our future to our actions that happen today. I can also relate to the movie from the fat that I too have felt stereotyped from being of Hispanic background. Just like African Americans, my people are also involved in gangs and create violence with each other, dying before their time. I have often felt and still feel today that through poems I can let out my feelings and rise above the violence that tries to define me. I extremely recommend "SLAM" to everyone because it shows a point of view that is not seen very often when the taken is the wrong one, being the exception to the violence that is expected. This film leaves me burning with questions about my life and my ancestors life, the first being, "What force do you let decide your fate?".