FLY BY NIGHT is a drama about family discord and career advancement played out against a musical backdrop of gangsta rap.
In the heart of Manhattan, college-educated Rich (Jeffrey Sams) dreams of rapping his way to stardom. Abandoning his wife and child, Rich moves in with his garrulous cousin Kayam (Daryl Mitchell) in a more happening part of town. Disdaining the homogenized patter of one racially mixed rap team,
Rich finds himself drawn to the "real" sounds of Cletus (Ron Brice), a scary-looking performer with a hair-trigger temper. Cletus, aka Romeo, is sufficiently interested in finding a wider market for his music to join forces with the ambitious Rich in a duo named The King and I. As the mellower
half of the duo, Rich performs his own pseudo-poetry and makes his partner's racist, sexist, homophobic, cop-hating diatribes more palatable.
Forgetting all about his wife, Rick dallies with a fly babe, Denise (Maura Tierney), and defends rap until the King and I's meteoric rise (and possible record deal) are compromised when a club appearance incites audience violence. Rich tries to clean up the act, while Cletus graduates from
beating up drugged-out hecklers to threatening Rich and his young son. Outraged by the attack on the father and son, a mob kills Cletus. Chastened by this too-close-for-comfort experience, Rich returns to his wife and starts to re-evaluate his musical career and the kinds of attitude he wants to
foster.
Viewers familiar with the rap scene may be annoyed by the clumsy manner in which FLY BY NIGHT unfolds its bittersweet life-lessons, intertwining one of the most vital forms of contemporary music with the stalest conventions of domestic drama. The homilies never stop as Rich tries to find his
manhood in his music, and it's a toss-up as to which is hollower: The rap doggerel or the hero's self-aggrandizing pronouncements. While FLY BY NIGHT captures the teen fascination with rap music, the film's underlying attitudes are not easy to ignore. Although one can handle the movie's infinite
skepticism about Caucasians, one can't help but deplore its sexism and homophobia. Rich is a jerk for abandoning his family, and the film doesn't chronicle his spiritual journey back to his roots with enough insight to make him an interesting protagonist. (Graphic violence, extreme profanity,
adult situations, nudity, substance abuse.) leave a comment
