Clueless in Queens

jkbonner1

score 6/10

I saw this movie based on a review in a national magazine that gave it three stars out of four, so I was expecting more from it than I got. The acting is OK but I failed to see what exactly was the point of this movie. Certain young women can be very naïve and/or stupid? White girls are what all the boys in the hood want? Drug-fueled people indulge in wild sex? Don't play with fire because you're gonna get burned? Maybe that's it.

The young woman in the movie, Leah (Morgan Saylor), is returning to Queens, NY a few days before college starts to move into an apartment. The movie opens with her and her roommate (India Menuez) moving furniture and settling in. To relax they start smoking marijuana and need more, so Leah looks out the window and spots some young Puerto Rican guys across the street pushing drugs on the side. She goes across the street and asks one of them to sell her some. Very soon she and one of them, Blue (Brian Marc), hit it off. Blue has his own issues but wants to make extra bucks so he can impress his new girl. This spirals out of control. He gets picked up by an undercover cop for selling drugs. Leah gets a lawyer (Chris Noth) to help Blue fight the charges. Soon he's released.

All Leah seems to want to do is party and indulge in drugs with her roommate and the Puerto Ricans. Pretty soon she graduates from marijuana to cocaine and on to alcohol and is opening her mouth, spreading her legs, or bending over to satisfy her boss, her boyfriend, or her attorney. More problems brew. Blue had taken some good coke to sell for one of the upper echelon pushers before being thrown in jail for selling drugs (although no drugs were found on him―Leah has the stash). Leah blows it all partying with her boss and his girl friend while trying to sell it to get the money to pay off the pusher. She passes out and awakens the following morning to find all the money gone. Her boss and the girl friend plead innocent. Un-huh. And if you buy that one, they'll sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.

Meanwhile Blue is now free and proposes marriage to Leah, telling her this feeling is once in a lifetime. Love is blossoming but suddenly the pusher appears out of nowhere screaming he wants his money and viciously attacks Blue and Leah. Blue kills him with a wretch as he is busy molesting Leah. The police arrive at the scene and cart Blue away in a police car. As they start to drive off, handcuffed and in the back seat Blue give Leah a sad look of desperation and hopelessness. As a third-time offender he won't be coming back soon.

Ultimately Leah's bumbling has led her boyfriend Blue to kill a man. As Leah's lawyer (Chris Noth) at one time comments to her, you don't seem to understand how things work around here. I had to laugh at that one. No kidding. You think? The last scene is Leah sitting in a classroom looking completely dazed as though what happened to her in the few days before school was all a bad dream that would somehow blow away. Did she learn any life-lessons from all this? May be a setup for a sequel.

If you are into parties, nightclub-going, loud rap music, like to watch people getting high and having all sorts of sex, this is the movie for you. It does have a lot of frantic action so you probably won't nod off. Ending is a bummer though. All in all the movie borders on banal. Personally I need a little more nourishment out of a movie than this one provided.

6/10 (acting OK)

jkbonner1 12 September 2016

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3542568/