SLEIGHT (2016)

Studio:       BH Tilt
Director:    J.D. Dillard
Writer:       J.D. Dillard, Alex Theurer
Producer:  Eric B. Fleischman, Sean Tabibian, Alex Theurer
Stars:     Jacob Latimore, Seychelle Gabriel, Sasheer Zamata, Storm Reid, Cameron Esposito, Mane Andrew, Frank Clem, Brandon Johnson, Michael Villar, Dule Hill

Review Score:

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Summary:

Forced into dealing drugs to support his little sister, a young street magician struggles to escape a life of crime.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Los Angeles – With their father already deceased, Bashir “Bo” Wolfe becomes his little sister Tina’s caretaker when their mother dies unexpectedly.

One Year Later – To support himself and his sister, Bo reluctantly deals drugs for a crime boss named Angelo. Having dreamed of becoming a magician since childhood, Bo also works as a street performer. To set himself apart as a sleight of hand artist, Bo painfully disfigures his own arm to install an electromagnet he uses to manipulate metal and playing cards.

While performing in Larchmont, Bo meets a young woman named Holly. The two of them eventually begin dating and gradually develop a romance.

Angelo tasks Bo with tracking down a new drug dealer working in Angelo’s territory. Bo uses his dexterity to pickpocket a rival henchman’s phone and discovers that the new dealer is named Maurice. Angelo later forces Bo to accompany his crew when they threaten Maurice, which makes Bo uncomfortable.

Bo’s neighbor Georgi, who helps care for Tina when Bo isn’t home, warns Bo about getting in too deep with Angelo. Bo expresses his intention to raise enough money to get he and Tina out of debt so he can stop working for Angelo altogether.

Bo hosts dinner at home for Holly, Georgi, and Tina. Angelo unexpectedly pulls Bo away to help his crew kidnap Maurice. When Maurice refuses to back down, Angelo forces Bo to cut off Maurice’s hand, which horrifies Bo.

Bo comforts Holly after she is beaten by her divorced mother. After spending the night together, Holly discovers the magnet embedded in Bo’s infected arm. Bo explains a childhood experience that drove him to become a magician so unique, he would sacrifice his own body in the process.

Angelo discovers Bo has been cutting his cocaine to skim profits on the side. Angelo brutally beats Bo before giving him a deadline to come up with the $15,000 he owes for the kilo he cut, plus an additional $30,000 in extortion.

Bo tells Holly the truth about his criminal lifestyle. Instead of abandoning him, Holly resolves to help Bo escape his situation.

Bo pawns his possessions, continues performing, and aggressively sells drugs, but still comes up short of Angelo’s demanded amount. To make up the difference, Angelo breaks into the office safe of a nightclub managed by Luna, one of his clients.

Maurice’s henchmen find Bo at the club and capture him. Bo uses his skills to escape handcuffs and a car trunk before Maurice’s crew discovers he is missing.

Hiding out at Georgi’s place, Bo spies Angelo’s crew breaking into his house. Angelo calls Bo. Bo asks for more time to come up with the money. Angelo demands an additional $5,000.

Out of options for paying Angelo, Bo and Holly discuss leaving L.A. together with Tina. Bo then goes to pick up Tina at school only to discover that Angelo abducted her.

Bo seeks help from his high school science teacher Mr. Granger to increase the power in his arm magnet. The duo works together to create a stronger device capable of greater metallic manipulation.

Bo goes to Angelo’s mansion. Bo takes down one henchman by pulling out his teeth through metal fillings and another by making him beat himself with an aluminum baseball bat.

Bo confronts Angelo, demanding to know where his sister is. Angelo pulls a gun and fires. Bo stops the bullets in midair and redirects one of them toward Angelo’s forehead. Bo pushes the bullet into Angelo until Angelo finally gives up Tina’s location. Bo tosses the $15,000 he originally owed and leaves.

With his arm badly injured from the energy expenditure, Holly drives Bo to Tina’s location. Bo recovers his sister.

San Diego – Now relocated with Holly and Tina, Bo continues working as a street performer while preparing for Georgi’s upcoming visit. Holly spies Bo working on a secret, powerful magic trick that astonishes her at the sight of it.

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Review:

With their parents deceased, the burden of caring for little sister Tina now falls squarely on big brother Bo’s back.  To make ends meet, Bo’s plan for scrounging up scratch requires him to take concurrent courses down two different paths.

One path involves pursuing his childhood dream of becoming a magician.  Bo doesn’t want to be an ordinary street performer panhandling for a tourist’s pocket change forever.  Bo is so serious about his goal that he carves out a piece of his arm to install an electromagnet with which he manipulates metal and rigged playing cards.  If only he had an equally impressive trick that could heal the infection slowly eating his skin.

The second route turns Bo into a reluctant drug dealer.  Sleight of hand comes through in a clutch when a cop says, “spread ‘em” and Bo simply palms a baggie of coke.  But greater danger comes when his cutthroat boss Angelo moves Bo from selling on the street to doing dirty deeds as an enforcer.

Bo already wanted out.  Faced with demands like hacking off a rival crime lord’s hand, Bo’s clock now ticks faster.  A new romance with Holly, who has homestead troubles of her own, has him optimistic that a better future is in the cards.  But when a scheme to get out from under Angelo’s thumb backfires, two crime crews come looking to draw blood.  And if they can’t get Bo’s, they might go after someone he loves.

Pulling off some magic of its own, “Sleight” creates an illusion of being a bigger movie than its small budget might otherwise allow with less sincere stagecraft.  Co-writer and director J.D. Dillard cuts corners using creativity in a manner that streamlines a cinematic story for a smooth rhythm with minimal fluff.

One such instance has the prologue panning across bric-a-brac like trophies and school certificates while a voicemail plays from a former teacher offering condolences on Bo’s mother’s passing.  In under a minute, Dillard’s minimalist montage establishes Bo’s background and situation without using actors.  “Sleight” also sets up a key second fiddle so his serendipitous reappearance later sticks out as less of a deus ex machina.

Convenient contrivances do get the better of things when fiction is merely functional.  Sasheer Zamata of “Saturday Night Live” has an unrewarding role performing redundant duties as Bo’s conscience, reiterating warnings he already knows.  She is also a surrogate slipped in to explain who watches Tina during the plentiful time when Bo is performing, dealing, stealing, or dating.  That’s as much of a boon to the script as it is to Bo.

That script then asks everyone to turn a blind eye toward scientific logic when Bo’s magnetic apparatus is in play.  The finale alone is a humdinger of impossible physics fit to give Neil deGrasse Tyson a stroke.

“Sleight” knows enough not to fool you, however.  The movie is well aware that viewers are smart enough to see up its sleeve and stare right at the make-believe.  But if we can accept that gamma radiation can turn a doctor into a green monster, we can suspend disbelief about stopping bullets with magnets when it is all in the name of entertainment.

“Sleight” doesn’t delve deep enough to crack underneath its emotional surface, which is what hurts it from really hitting in the heart.  We’ve seen young men like Bo before, and one black eye for Holly doesn’t pack the punch required to bring out a hanky of sympathy.

Yet the movie is more interested in meaningful enjoyment for viewers than cutting into its characters for psychological study.  Naysayers may roll eyes at the prospect of journeying with “another” down on his luck youth struggling to break free of an urban environment.  Bo might be black, but ethnicity doesn’t define the experience for him or for the audience.  Using just a tiny tease of sci-fi, “Sleight” is universally accessible as a nifty dramatic thriller.

“Sleight” has the skeleton of a typical tale featuring a heart of gold youth fighting to escape the crime life he was forced into.  But those bones are given life by a unique skin of subtle fantasy providing a patina of escapist entertainment this sort of story usually doesn’t have.

Review Score:  75

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