This account of two penniless kids that grow up in the West Indies to become murderous criminals with lots of reggae music sweetening the mix resembles a music video. Did I care what happened at the end of the film to the main characters? Not really, they were bad people who did bad things, a sentiment I held regarding Cess Silvera's directing effort.įreshman writer & director Cess Silvera's "Shottas" is a shallow, cynical, but competently lensed, R-rated, blood-splattered Jamaican gangster saga in the tradition of William Wellman's "The Public Enemy" (1931) as well as Brian DePalma's "Scarface" (1983) with noisy gunfights and vile profanity galore. And how about that "tongue-in-cheek" joke about Wyclef's character banking on a music career? Horrible. The Anderson character is a joke-he's a political-bad guy cut-out. While I did like the music, it's over-used and just sort of "there"- didn't do much for the film other than elicit some head-nodding on my part. Technical problems aside: the meaningful dialogue is quite slim- character development seems aimed at an increase in robberies, the direction is lop-sided and meandering, never really wanting to show you much more than hot chicks and nice whips(would have made for a nice extended music video). My dvd copy would sometimes cut to a black screen that would say: Insert more robbery scenes here. Oh and watch out for Max and the sick mentality he has which is another way of projecting the futility and destruction caused by the greed to be the richest and baddest man.Ī bit uneven, Shottas suffers from low quality transfers that just add to the film's problems. Kymani and Spragga's acting is a very good effort and if the opportunity arises for them to continue they will no doubt become very good at it, i am not too sure who wrote the dialouge but it is very real and it shows "wayne" to have a wicked sense of humour. On the whole the film is very entertaining and to some degree real( however the last time i was in kingston i saw a father beat hs son for playing guns) it highlights not only the poorness of Jamaican people but also the political entities that keep them poor and how these entities use the so called bad men of yard to put them in power. They go to America and ive a good life for a while until all the bad deeds in their past consume them. They are the original shottas two youts who grow in the ghetto and use ghetto menatlity to get them out. It basically follows the fortunes of two young men who grow up as close as brothers. If you like shoot em ups then this will appeal to you and to be real you shouldnt be watching if you don't i supppose thats why it is called shottas.