Themes: Rise and Fall Stories, Rags To Riches, Ladder to the Top
Main Cast: Chris Rock, Allen Payne, Deezer D, Chris Elliott, Phil Hartman
Release Year: 1993
Country: US
Run Time: 89 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Comedian Chris Rock stars in this scattershot satire of rap music in the vein of This Is Spinal Tap. This film within a film begins with A. White (Chris Elliot) screening a rough cut of a documentary he has made of the notorious CB4 rap group -- consisting of group leader Albert, also know as MC Gusto (Chris Rock); Otis, also known as Stab Master Arson (Deezer D); and Euripides, also know as Dead Mike (Allen Payne). White charts the course of CB4's success, their superstar status a result of the fact that they are the only gangsta rap group who are, in fact, actual gangsters, coming direct from rap sheets to rap music. They are considered so bad that they even give rapper Ice-T pause: "I thought I was hardcore. But these guys are serious! What am I supposed to do now?" Unfortunately, at the height of their fame, their gangster pose is revealed to be a sham. Albert, Otis, and Euripides turn out to be a bunch of middle-class blacks striking a gangsta facade to look cool. But now they are in trouble. The real Gusto (Charlie Murphy), a neighborhood thug who went to prison on a drug bust, has broken out of jail and is coming for CB4. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Review
It's pretty easy to tell that CB4 is Chris Rock the fledgling Saturday Night Live cast member, rather than Chris Rock the Oscars host. Not that Rock has ever mastered the screen the way he's mastered standup, but he's definitely still finding his footing here. His parody of gangsta rap is surprisingly toothless, which is counterintuitive, given all the gold dental work on display. Rock's co-writer, Robert LoCash, doesn't bring enough blatant silliness from his work on the final two Naked Gun movies, and Rock should have learned a thing or two by appearing in Keenen Ivory Wayans' I'm Gonna Git You Sucka! Maybe director Tamra Davis wanted CB4 to be more This Is Spinal Tap than Airplane!, but it's not nearly subtle enough to pull that off. The result is a boring middle ground between the outrageous and the sublime. Spoofs like the N.W.A rip-off "Straight Outta Locash" feel more like the work of Weird Al Yankovic than a sharp satirist, since the song uses N.W.A's same beat and lyric structure, and the original lyrics are so vulgar, they can't even be exaggerated for parody. Still, some details are pretty observant and funny. Character names like Stab Master Arson get the criminal posturing of early gangsta rap down perfectly, and for a film that came out in 1993, CB4 feels prophetic about real-world rap-related drive-bys like the deaths of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. It also recognizes the ongoing reality that some of rap's biggest purported criminals grew up in some of suburbia's richest neighborhoods. Fans of Comedy Central will be interested to see the film's villain played by Eddie's brother Charlie Murphy, over ten years before he surfaced as a popular member of the Chappelle's Show ensemble. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
Charlie Murphy - Gusto; Khandi Alexander - Sissy; Art Evans - Alber Sr.; Theresa Randle - Eve; Willard E. Pugh - Trustus; Louisa Abernathy - Mrs. Otis; Halle Berry - Herself; Al Clegg - 976-Dis; Lance Crouther - Well Dressed Man; J.D. Daniels - Ben; Tommy Davidson - Weird Warren (uncredited); Flavor Flav - Himself; Richard Gant - Baa Baa Ack; Isaac Hayes - Owner; Shirley Hemphill - 976-Sexy; Ice Cube - Himself; Ice-T - Himself; Jedda Jones - Waitress; Tyrone Jones - 40 Dog; Christopher Keene - Accountant; LaWanda Page - Grandma; Renee Tenison - Twin; John Walcutt - Director; Gerard G. Williams - Inmate; Wayne "Crescendo" Ward - Biscuit Diner; Sally Jane Jackson - Wacky Dee; Melvin Jones - Inmate; Jeremiah Birkett - Malik; Chasiti Hampton - Tee Tee; Niketa Calame - Albertina; Shaquille O'Neal - Himself; Vanessa Lee Chester - Talona; Rachel True - Daliha
Credit
Martin Charles - Art Director, Chris Rock - Co-producer, William Fay - Co-producer, Bernie White - Costume Designer, Alexander White - Costume Designer, Rip Murray - First Assistant Director, Maria Melograne - First Assistant Director, Tamra Davis - Director, Earl Watson - Editor, Sean Daniel - Executive Producer, Brian Grazer - Executive Producer, John Barnes - Composer (Music Score), Nelson Coates - Production Designer, Karl Walter Lindenlaub - Cinematographer, Nelson George - Producer, Susan Benjamin - Set Designer, Karen A. Steward - Set Designer, John Hartigan - Special Effects, Chris Rock - Screenwriter, Nelson George - Screenwriter, Robert LoCash - Screenwriter
