GANGSTER, GANGSTER

Screenplay by Tyger McHenry

Think Yojimbo N The Hood. Stunning depiction of a twelve-year-old inner-city kid escaping his crime-infested community and finds a purpose to his meaningless life. Violent as any war film, unrelentingly grim, young hero Smoke fuels a bloody turf war between Spike, a heroin dealer who murdered his best friend and cocaine kingpin Snowball, who holds his sister Aliqua hostage in a crack house as a doped-up sex slave. Smoke stages a suicide mission to rescue his sister, killing Spike and Snowball, firing all of his ammo, including the extra bullet in his pocket he planned to use on himself if he were captured. Most moving scenes in this gang-related script are when Smoke and his uncle Juwon play Chinese checkers outside their public housing building to the background music of gunfire. Shocking epilogue will leave everyone breathless. A gritty take on The 400 Blows, the dialogue is profane but laced with wit and the power of street knowledge*.