Beats: Netflix Fails to Find the Right Rhythm
A reclusive, teenage music prodigy forms an unlikely friendship with a struggling producer. United by their mutual love of hip-hop, they try to free each other from the demons of their past and break into the city's music scene.
Beats offered Netflix every ingredient to create a really good movie with the right concept, cast, plot and conflict. How the production team ended up pulling a classic open end really shocked the fluids out of viewers.
The concept of on which the movie was premised was one that could both be categorised as a coming of age story, while at the same time it could be one tailored towards exploring the hip hop industry and the strive to make a breakthrough. Thus, this movie offered the producer the opportunity to really tell a story that was both complex in its approach, as it was complex in its creation of conflict. While the direction seemed to have focused more on the coming of age aspect of the movie, being August confronting his demons, Netflix and production never really explored the conflict they had generated by pushing him into the hip hop world, and this is what could have given this movie more depth and relatability. In the end, viewers were left with a feeling of dissatisfaction, as Netflix and the script writer barely scratched the surface of a would be incredible piece of tv.
Beats offered Netflix every ingredient to create a really good movie with the right concept, cast, plot and conflict. How the production team ended up pulling a classic open end really shocked the fluids out of viewers.
The concept of on which the movie was premised was one that could both be categorised as a coming of age story, while at the same time it could be one tailored towards exploring the hip hop industry and the strive to make a breakthrough. Thus, this movie offered the producer the opportunity to really tell a story that was both complex in its approach, as it was complex in its creation of conflict. While the direction seemed to have focused more on the coming of age aspect of the movie, being August confronting his demons, Netflix and production never really explored the conflict they had generated by pushing him into the hip hop world, and this is what could have given this movie more depth and relatability. In the end, viewers were left with a feeling of dissatisfaction, as Netflix and the script writer barely scratched the surface of a would be incredible piece of tv.
That being said, the movie still offered up some really intense scenes and monster beats, but that is about as good as it gets. And we may even be constrained to point out that even though the creators billed August as a musical genius, the way the script was written never allowed the prodigy explore or at least display all of his creativity, and that in our opinion smacks of a dearth of creative ingenuity on the part of the scripting team as well as that of the producer. Noteworthy is the fact that the film sought to rely on the past of Romelo Reese(Anderson) without succeeding in creating a really obvious or compelling back story for him, and this meant that the movie itself was grasping for Reese's story as foothold, but came up with straws. In essence, the character development level that was needed for the level of reliance the writer sought to place on the Reese back story was severely lacking and the whole story ended up being shallow and lacking in depth and story line strength.
As a coming of age/ high school story, it is a really beautiful tale, but immediately the script introduced a hip hop angle and it's attendant conflict, it simply could not be a coming of age story only anymore, it offered a much more daunting challenge for the writer to narrate a tale that factored in both conflicts that they had created. But as astounding as it may sound, Netflix and it's production team of choice chose to attend to just one out of the two, hastily explored the other and chose a path that ended the film without really resolving the conflict as it ought to have been. We are also pushed to conclude that the reason why that may have had to happen was due to the lack of development of the characters and the the back stories that would have been needed to reach any reasonable conclusion on the conflict. It's incredible the proportions the failure!
As dire as the situation may sound, the movie is not as bad as it's failures make it seem. There is a lot to watch this film for. In the first place the cast are incredible and really did a number on their scripts, there are the laughs and then there are the beats. Should you elect to see this movie, you better see it with a headphone that will allow you really appreciate the richness in the sounds. This will at least let you forget how massive the movie failed to deliver on its promises.
Directed by: Chris Robinson
Produced by: Robert Teitel, Christian Sarabia, Glendon Palmer
Written by: Miles Orion Feldsott
Starring:
Anthony Anderson
Uzo Aduba
Emayatzy Corinealdi
Paul Walter Hauser
Evan J. Simpson
Khalil Everage
Dave East
Seandrea "Dreezy" Sledge
Ashley Jackson
Megan Sousa
Music by: Siddhartha Khosla
Cinematography: Joshua Reis
Edited by: David Blackburn
Production Company: Global Road Entertainment, 51 Minds Entertainment, Endemol Shine North America
Produced by: Robert Teitel, Christian Sarabia, Glendon Palmer
Written by: Miles Orion Feldsott
Starring:
Anthony Anderson
Uzo Aduba
Emayatzy Corinealdi
Paul Walter Hauser
Evan J. Simpson
Khalil Everage
Dave East
Seandrea "Dreezy" Sledge
Ashley Jackson
Megan Sousa
Music by: Siddhartha Khosla
Cinematography: Joshua Reis
Edited by: David Blackburn
Production Company: Global Road Entertainment, 51 Minds Entertainment, Endemol Shine North America
FCA's AppR: 6.8/10
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