Many give in to the pressures of their surroundings but some are just stronger. The movie "SLAM" by Mark Levin is another typical story of a young man who gets into trouble and by doing so finds who he is. The issue isn't hard to identify making the audience put less thought into what is going on. A shooting while making an exchange of drugs puts Ray Joshua (played by Saul Williams) in jail where everyone wants a piece of him. Violence and drugs make him decide on different roles in his surrounds but he tries to stick to his own beliefs. When threatened in the prison yard instead of fighting he retaliates with words to also try to open up everyone's eyes to the real enemy that is holding them down instead of each other.
In this film society is showing the idea that when a problem arises people can be torn apart and start to fight each other instead of going after what the real cause of the problem is. The law is trying to make Ray accept his punishment for possession of pot and even for a crime he did not commit, shooting his close friend. He is forced to choose sides in prison on the current situation just like everyone else has. One side believes that Ray set his close friend up while the other knows he did not. By expressing his talents in the prison yard with a poetic rap he tries to define himself with his own views on the situation at hand and makes no attempt on joining anyone. His rap got him out of trouble that day as well as convincing the leader of one of the side to bail him out to reunite with his close friend who happened to have only become blind. He did this so he would make the others understand that the fighting need to stop to end the cycle. The retaliation from the shooting stopped when his close friend understood that he didn't want anyone else to get hurt or to even lose him.
My least favorite part of the film even though it may have been inspirational to some would have been anytime there was rapping going on. I honestly could not follow or understand what they would be saying when they did. With all of the drugs, violence, and jail time going on I could not relate to this story in any way that I could think of. I don't even think there was an exact time in my life that I could say that I "found myself". The film sends out the message that you need to accept the consequences for your actions and move on. I would only recommend this film to people who can relate to it. As for the people like me who can't or don't think they can relate to it will not find it interesting. The film would have been better if Ray would have been more of a bad guy in the beginning to show even more how he has changed.
In this film society is showing the idea that when a problem arises people can be torn apart and start to fight each other instead of going after what the real cause of the problem is. The law is trying to make Ray accept his punishment for possession of pot and even for a crime he did not commit, shooting his close friend. He is forced to choose sides in prison on the current situation just like everyone else has. One side believes that Ray set his close friend up while the other knows he did not. By expressing his talents in the prison yard with a poetic rap he tries to define himself with his own views on the situation at hand and makes no attempt on joining anyone. His rap got him out of trouble that day as well as convincing the leader of one of the side to bail him out to reunite with his close friend who happened to have only become blind. He did this so he would make the others understand that the fighting need to stop to end the cycle. The retaliation from the shooting stopped when his close friend understood that he didn't want anyone else to get hurt or to even lose him.
My least favorite part of the film even though it may have been inspirational to some would have been anytime there was rapping going on. I honestly could not follow or understand what they would be saying when they did. With all of the drugs, violence, and jail time going on I could not relate to this story in any way that I could think of. I don't even think there was an exact time in my life that I could say that I "found myself". The film sends out the message that you need to accept the consequences for your actions and move on. I would only recommend this film to people who can relate to it. As for the people like me who can't or don't think they can relate to it will not find it interesting. The film would have been better if Ray would have been more of a bad guy in the beginning to show even more how he has changed.