Paper Soldiers

Year 17, Day 103 - 4/13/25 - Movie #4,995

BEFORE: Last Movie Year was a big year for Kevin Hart, he was tied for third with 9 appearances, this year I just don't have as many films on my list with him in it - but that allows me to use it as a link to get where I'm going in time for Easter. This is a film from very early in his career, before "Fool's Gold" or "The 40-Year Old Virgin" or "Scary Movie 3" even.  I never even heard of it before, I think I was just looking for a film to put on a DVD with "The Man from Toronto" to make a double-film disc. 

Michael Rapaport carries over from "Deep Blue Sea".

THE PLOT: Under guidance from experienced thief Will, rookie burglar Shawn navigates relationships with girlfriend Mo'Nique, bumbling friends Birdie and Johnny, his parole officer, and volatile neighborhood sociopath Stu while committing robberies.

AFTER: It's a real letdown of a movie, almost a complete nothing-burger unless you're really interested in seeing what Kevin Hart was like before he broke big. Sure, he talked fast and got loud, which is kind of his thing, but he's not particular funny here.  So it feels like he hadn't really figured out the winning formula yet, or else maybe the filmmakers just didn't know what to do with him. I can't really point to specific things to say what's wrong with the film, except that it just fails to be funny, mostly, it's more of a slice of life thing, a peek into the lives of some wanna-be burglars in New Jersey, but nobody really knows what they're doing when it comes to burglary, or even life, really.  

Who thought "Scared Straight" would make a good movie?  Did we need this? If the point of the film is to point out that stealing is wrong, and that people who steal often go to prison, well, we didn't really need that, we kind of all know that already.  So what is the point here?  Well, it's really hard to say because mostly it's just people yelling at each other for almost 90 minutes straight, and often they're very hard to understand, because they're yelling. It's not helpful if you're trying to watch a movie late at night downstairs and not wake up your wife, who is sleeping upstairs. I had to constantly be dialing the volume down when people (not just Kevin Hart) got loud, and then of course since I was watching this on DVD with no subtitles, it was even harder for me to figure out what people were saying.  

They kind of kept going back to the same jokes over and over, too, and I'm being kind of polite in calling them "jokes" - more like plot points, really, jokes that aren't funny.  Twice the gang breaks into houses belonging to rappers, one time it's Jay-Z and another time it's a fictional rapper named "Gallon" or something. Is that supposed to be a weird reference to 50 Cent, like he's 50 Gallon?  If not, I don't get it. They steal some stuff from Jay-Z's house, which isn't cool, especially if you respect his music, you should probably just drop what you took and leave right away, just out of an appreciation for his career, which is a big one, from what I've heard. Sure, go ahead, rob Gallon, though, I don't really care.  Who knew so many rappers lived in houses in south Jersey?  

Also, if you keep getting caught stealing, maybe at some point you have to admit that you're no good at it and try another career.  Shawn has another job working at a beeper store, but when his focus is on robbing houses he never really shows up on time, or at all, so he gets fired. Eh, it's OK, in a couple years nobody will have a beeper anymore, the whole industry is dying. I'd say get into cel phones, but it's 2002 and he won't realize they're the wave of the future just yet. By all means, keep robbing houses and almost getting caught.  

Shawn also has to deal with his baby mama, who knows he's doing something wrong when he shows up with money and she demands that he stop whatever it is, and his parole officer, who keeps threatening to send him to jail if he can't stop smoking weed and start giving negative drug tests. It should be simple enough to do this, I can't quite understand why he can't, especially since we never see him smoking weed in any scene.  Things here are generally somewhat confusing.  

What was most confusing to me was knowing that Michael Rapaport would show up at some point, and then I saw an actor who looked like a younger Michael Rapaport, so since this was released 23 years ago, naturally I assumed that was him.  But it wasn't, it was Paul Sado, who looks like Rapaport's younger brother or something - when the real Michael Rapaport did show up as a different character, it was quite confounding indeed.  Maybe these two actors should not be cast in the same film, unless they're playing brothers. Just saying.   

Pretty much a waste of 90 minutes of everyone's time, unless I'm missing the point it was trying to make, other than "stealing is wrong". 

Directed by David Daniel & Damon Dash

Also starring Kevin Hart (last seen in "Die Hart"), Beanie Sigel (last seen in "Hustle"), Stacey Dash (last seen in "I Could Never Be Your Woman"), Jason Cerbone (last seen in "Cloverfield"), Kamal Ahmed, Jacob “The Jeweler” Arabo, Kevin Carroll (last seen in "The Object of My Affection"), Harold “Stumpy” Cromer (last seen in "The Cotton Club"), Mylika Davis (last seen in "Far from Heaven"), James Dickson, Derron “Smokey” Edington, Venida Evans (last seen in "Just a Kiss"), Shane Franklin, Cam'ron, Jim Jones (last seen in "Righteous Kill"), Ross Haines (last seen in "3000 Miles to Graceland"), Ken Harris, Kiam "Capone" Holley, Tarsha Nicole Jones, Derrick "Capone" Lee, Lil' Cease, Angie Martinez, Charlie Murphy (last seen in "Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James"), Patrice O'Neal (last seen in "Kevin Hart & Chris Rock: Headliners Only"), Ryan Paden, Christine Rothholz, Paul Sado (last seen in 'Hubie Halloween"), N.O.R.E., Derrick Simmons (last seen in "The Wizard of Lies"), Tamika Talbot, Greg Travis (last seen in "Lost Highway"), MIchelle Valdes, Yolanda "Yo-Yo" Whittaker (last seen in "Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit"), Chris Eric Williams, Robert Wise, Tiffany Withers, 

with cameos from Damon Dash, Jay-Z (last seen in "Kevin Hart & Chris Rock: Headliners Only"), Memphis Bleek, 

RATING: 4 out of 10 broken windows