Black Hooker

I never pictured me reviewing a title like Black Hooker (AKA "Street Sisters"). For a while there as I watched I thought the title was going to turn out sounding worse than the movie really was (me not being the type to want to watch films about hookers black or otherwise). This isn't about the streets of Harlem or any such thing; most of it takes place on a farm with an elderly couple and a little kid who grows into an innocent young man.

This was adapted from a stage play which tells me right there that it is going to fall flat. No play has ever been adapted into a decent movie outside of Shakespeare. Anyway, the oddities of being a play first show up in that none of the characters have names. The closest we get is “Painted Lady” for the “black hooker” and "Grandma" and "Grandpa." It revolves around a white kid who lives with his black grandparents. He is the unwanted progeny of his prostitute mother. She resents her parents for being poor and God for not giving them more.

The boy grows up to fall in love with a childhood girl friend who goes on to demonstrate the terrible truth about Grandpa. Despite being a preacher the old man is a molester who rips away the innocence of his grandson's girl. The boy leaves the farm in a rage to try to strike up a relationship with his mother in the city, but she wants nothing to do with him. From there the movie follows the kid's disappointments and tragedies. Life sucks then death comes.

I'll give it this: a lot of the dialogue is written adequately, and the characters are moderately interesting. The story, though is drawn out and dull. The conclusion makes no impact and left me with an “ok whatever” kind of feeling. The acting is fair for such an obscure movie but not so much as to make it worth watching.

MORALITY:

I've seen this listed as being PG before, but don't you believe it for a minute. There isn't much strong language and only a couple of mildly violent scenes. Those aspects are nothing of any real concern.

What it does have are two lengthy sex scenes. The first one is with the prostitute mother. It includes nudity but doesn't really feel overly gratuitous. It's still enough to get this above a PG rating all by itself, but it doesn't really feel out of place.

The other is a molestation scene. It's with Grandpa and an underage girl which feels creepy enough just on that premise alone. It features a lot of nudity. Yes, the plot point of Grandpa being an old pervert is an important one, but this scene is unnecessarily long and graphic. The girl in the scene is rather cute which makes me wonder if the director just wanted an excuse to get her naked for a while. I would go so far that it even begins to feel pornographic although to be fair it never gets THAT explicit.

SPIRITUALITY:

A lot of this film feels almost inspirational at first. We hear a lot about God's love and even comments about the saving power of Jesus Christ. Painted Lady is mad at God, but Grandma defends the faith. Even in light of the prostitute sex scene this could almost be considered an inspiration film up to a point. Then we get to the point of God-loving preacher Grandpa being a dirty pervert who likes underage girls. OK, from a narrative perspective I guess I could see that as being important. It suggests that he is the reason Painted Lady has taken up a life of prostitution and that his faith is about a show of religion rather than any true respect for God which would serve to explain why his daughter's view of God is so negative. But seriously, do we need a porn scene to demonstrate that Grandpa is a pervert?

Even Grandma, who is in one sense the sole example of true servitude to Christ, is complicit if you think about it. She's turning a blind eye to Grandpa's evils which allows him to continue destroying lives.

Aside from the unnecessarily graphic scene, the ending is most definitely not inspirational. There is no triumph of faith or anything else remotely positive. I could almost say that it could serve as a warning that if you practice a false faith like Grandpa does you're going to reap the consequences. He sets in motion a spiritual darkness that will destroy the lives of his progeny. Yeah, I could almost say that except that the lackluster ending fails to get any significant message across.

So, yes, if you watch this you'll spend some time in church services, you'll hear some Jesus talk, then you'll get a big "joke's on you" as the film dissolves into a pitiful mess of drab despair. I don't really get the impression that the writer/director's intent was to flip the middle finger at Christians. It is certainly possible to have negative Christian characters and still have a worthy overall message. In the end, though, the ultimate message I see is that Christians are nothing more than a bunch of disgusting hypocrites.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Do yourself a favor and stay away from this one. There is nothing here that is worth the time.

#BlackHooker