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Cult-Classics: ‘Gang Related,’ Like 2Pac, Deserved a Better Ending

Cult-Classics: ‘Gang Related,’ Like 2Pac, Deserved a Better Ending

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Well, folks, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that there are many offerings by the cast and crew of this film that highlight the best of their work. There are films that are a part of the 1990s’ cultural zeitgeist and still have an impact on pop culture today. Films that are endlessly quotable, ceaselessly pulse-pounding and interesting. Films that I would, and have, happily watched several times over and always find something new to enjoy about them.

The bad news is that 1997’s Gang Related is not one of them.

If you’re looking for an excellent showcase of the late, great Tupac Shakur’s acting chops, sure, you can pop on this film, but what you’ll get is small potatoes compared to his role as the murderous, odious, seductively charming Bishop in 1992’s Juice (a film I, too late, realize I should have covered instead). Likewise, if you’re looking for a cop film by writer/director Jim Kouf about two partners from different ethnic backgrounds handling a case in unorthodox, occasionally illegal ways, I’d suggest his later screenplay Rush Hour (again, something I should have watched instead). Indeed, if you want a movie about a killer cop who will stop at nothing to get the necessary funds for his Hawaiian retirement and/or loan-shark payment plans, I’d suggest 2001’s Training Day instead (a movie I now realize I — you know what? Never mind).

This is not to suggest that Gang Related is wholly unwatchable; it’s just kind of boring, and nothing that features Dennis Quaid, Tupac Shakur, and James Earl “voice so distinctive it lends the Star Wars Monopoly game credibility” Jones should be this boring.

The story takes risks for sure. Rather than following the wronged William McCall aka “Joe Doe” (Dennis Quaid), the film begins and ends with two corrupt cops, Detectives Divinci and Rodriguez (James Belushi and Tupac Shakur, respectively). We follow their point of view for most of the runtime. In fact, I think Quaid has about twenty lines in the whole film. Even the scene where he explains how he went from a nearly saintlike surgeon providing free healthcare in impoverished countries to a disoriented Los Angeles vagabond feels oddly out of place. Are we suddenly meant to care that much about him? Is he now a real character, or is he still just a symbol of the disenfranchised innocents that a rogue police force (or, in this case, two rogue police officers) can inter within the confines of a jail cell should they find it expedient to do so? The bland orchestral score during this scene tells me it’s the former, but I don’t buy it. 

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I believe this film has achieved cult status because it is Shakur’s last film. It seems to be one of those situations where the mundane is translated into the marvelous because it has sentimental value. If Pac had lived, we’d probably have forgotten about this film the same way we forget about Eddie Murphy’s Holy Man or Denzel Washington’s The Siege — movies that, as part of a burgeoning résumé, represent nothing more than young actors’ need to accept every part offered in order to keep working. If that same actor dies needlessly and tragically at the depressingly young age of 25, however, the last flick of their filmography will take on a new significance. Good or bad, it will be indicative of what could have been, with its slightest exhibition of performance acumen being fresh salt in the wound, a grim reminder that life is frequently unfair and often seems to take the best of us.

Shakur and Jones make up most of the reasons to watch this film, and, for Shakur’s part, this also has a lot to do with the film’s soundtrack.

Now, the film’s score itself is terrible. For a 1997 movie, it has an inadvertent 1980s feel to it — synthesized horns, syncopated drum machines, that sort of thing. It has more in common with the main theme from Commando than contemporary OSTs like Enemy of the State. But the bad score is more than compensated for by the licensed songs on the soundtrack. Of course, there’s a lot of Tupac, as I would argue there should be, but then there’s the rest. Ice Cube, the Outlawz, Snoop and Nate Dogg — you’d be gluttonous to ask for more. I promise, if you mention Gang Related to anyone, their response will be, “That album slaps! Movie’s good, too, I think.” 

Where Gang Related succeeds in retrospect is as one document in Tupac Shakur’s life. Twenty-five. His career was so storied and, like his doomed contemporary Biggie, his voice was so distinctive, so poetic, so literally deep that I think we imagine him older than he really was. The film, shot two weeks before and released one year after Shakur’s murder, tastefully omits the scene where we watch two men shoot him to death. We still see the bloody aftermath, but I think the editors were right to omit the act. Concerning Gang Related, Roger Ebert gave the film a semi-positive review, stating that it was “good enough to deserve a better ending.”

True, but how much more so for co-lead Shakur?

Gang Related is available to view on HBO Max until January 31, 2023.


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