Don't Believe the Hype

Quicksand

This movie isn't horrible.  It's a whole lot of style and not enough substance, but that's the problem with most of director Hype Williams' music videos, so I decided to finally catch "Belly," to find out if the guy was actually any good at telling a story or not.  Most of his music videos look the same, you see, with absolutely no content whatsoever.  Then I saw the way he took the time to tell an actual story, with his images in No Doubt's "Ex-Girlfriend," and I realized the man actually had talent, and not just a fisheye lens.

I don't think much of Williams as a writer.  But I will compare this film favorably to another movie that's not very good, "Nomads," written and directed in 1986 by John McTiernan.  There's another filmmaker who can't write, but made incredible, beautifully directed films, from the popcorn ("Predator") to the dramatic ("The Hunt for Red October"), to both at the same time ("Die Hard.")

The acid test of any music video director is, can they direct actors?  Is their visual flair all they've got (Kevin Bray, Jake Scott), or do they bring actual theatrical talent to the table (F. Gary Gray, Spike Jonze)? "Belly" is inconclusive, as the editing and camera covers up everyone's performance so that both the bad and good actors appear to give equal performances.  The intrusive "blah blah blah" voiceover, which reminded me of a Terrence Malick film, didn't help either.

Hopefully Williams will take another crack at it, and leave the writing to the professionals.  This one lacked character, subtlety, or any emotion other than anger and hate, except for the final 2 minutes, and by then I didn't care anymore.  These are all writing problems, but then, the scenes that he didn't leave out for no reason are actually quite fascinating, in a morbid sort of way.

Of course, ten years later, McTiernan's career suffers, and no matter what anyone tells you, so does Spike Lee's.  Whatever Hype's spent the last 4 years doing, I hope he gets a good script soon.  The potential is staggering.

But this film isn't.  6/10.  (nice sets)

score 6/10

Quicksand 29 April 2002

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0557195/