‘Bomb the System’ Crushes New York City
Indie flick returns to subject of graffiti
MOVIE REVIEW, Josue Rojas,
YO! Youth Outlook, Feb 11, 2004
I sat there in my boy Estria’s living room and kinda smirked at the beginning of Bomb the System, a new graffiti movie showing at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival on Feb. 13 and 15th. Estria is a Bay Area graffiti virtuoso who's been bombing graf for the better part of two decades. I wanted to watch the flick with him and get his two cents about it. At first, it was kind of hard to take the movie seriously. There aren’t many movies on graf, let alone dramas about it. There are documentaries like Style Wars and Video Graf from the 80s. Wild Style is the only notable feature length drama about graffiti, and it was cool cause it was a story about a new popular subculture focusing on the South Bronx scene back in 1982.
Bomb the System is the first feature in over 20 years to delve into the world of graffiti art. The film, shot entirely on the streets of New York City, is the feature debut of 23-year-old writer/director Adam Bhala Lough. He’s got a solid visual style and a cool grasp of narrative, yet the flick can get preachy/agenda-y at times. The film is loaded with “slice of life” bits of urban life. Like in one scene where some cats are bombing and happen to watch a couple jump nude on their bed as foreplay -- that could definitely happen, man. Bomb the System expands on an experimental short film that served as Lough's college thesis project. It's cool, I mean the dude's my age. I think it's a monumental feat for someone my age.
“I like that they busted real shit [on walls] for the movie…” Estria said. It’s true, Lough has been blacklisted from filming in New York, due to having crushed the city for the film. Not bad!
Alright, so the movie is about this dude, Blest, a New York Graffiti king with no ambition except for getting lit, bombing graf and acting loserly. He hooks up with his buddy Justin "Buk50" (Gano Grills) and the latter's younger brother Kevin "Lune" (Jade Yorker) to rack – shoplift – spray-paint cans and hit the streets each night, on constant alert for cops and hostile rival crews and compulsively looking for clean walls to crush. Estria added: "They're the kings of the city, but they still gotta work shitty jobs...that's pretty real.”
Blest is the most wanted writer on the NYPD Vandal Squad's hit list and that's the platform for the unveiling of a hella big graf-artists vs. vandal squad Armageddon. Pretty unlikely, but we'll go along with it.
“I'll tell you what, I really like that they had LEE and TATS cru in there and that piece on the Brooklyn Bridge...I think it's really up there,” Estria said.
Some parts were cheesy and over-explanatory, but saying that is nit-picking. All in the entire flick is cool. I guess some people aren't at all exposed to graf art or its techniques. Estria put it best when he said: “Man, those things are obvious to me but the general public don't know that, they don't bomb, or watch graffiti videos.”
He went on to say: “It's slick for an indie film. Some of these shots are real beautiful...good color you know. I got one real problem with it though, the star. Why's it gotta be a dopey, dorky SF-looking writer? It bugs me that the star is a white dude. Why'd he pick this guy? He coulda picked anybody on earth."
Here's the verdict: If you're a graf writer, you won't learn anything new; your life won't be changed. So don't expect that. It's a story you're familiar with. If you don't know a whole lot about graffiti art or graffiti culture than you'll get a rough idea of what a writer is and does. Either way, you'll enjoy the flick. It's put together beautifully and the visuals are dope. It's choppy, gritty and the beats are cool.
I mean, it's cool just on the strength of the sheer destruction caused by the on camera bombing. I mean, you're always gonna cool if you're blacklisted from ever taping in NYC. Plus, there’s tons of real graf writers, too.
Go see Bomb the System, showing in the San Francisco Independent Film Festival (www.sfindie.com), on Feb. 13th and 15th at the Roxie Theater, 3117 16th Street at Valencia. 1 of 1
Bomb the System is the first feature in over 20 years to delve into the world of graffiti art. The film, shot entirely on the streets of New York City, is the feature debut of 23-year-old writer/director Adam Bhala Lough. He’s got a solid visual style and a cool grasp of narrative, yet the flick can get preachy/agenda-y at times. The film is loaded with “slice of life” bits of urban life. Like in one scene where some cats are bombing and happen to watch a couple jump nude on their bed as foreplay -- that could definitely happen, man. Bomb the System expands on an experimental short film that served as Lough's college thesis project. It's cool, I mean the dude's my age. I think it's a monumental feat for someone my age.
“I like that they busted real shit [on walls] for the movie…” Estria said. It’s true, Lough has been blacklisted from filming in New York, due to having crushed the city for the film. Not bad!
Alright, so the movie is about this dude, Blest, a New York Graffiti king with no ambition except for getting lit, bombing graf and acting loserly. He hooks up with his buddy Justin "Buk50" (Gano Grills) and the latter's younger brother Kevin "Lune" (Jade Yorker) to rack – shoplift – spray-paint cans and hit the streets each night, on constant alert for cops and hostile rival crews and compulsively looking for clean walls to crush. Estria added: "They're the kings of the city, but they still gotta work shitty jobs...that's pretty real.”
Blest is the most wanted writer on the NYPD Vandal Squad's hit list and that's the platform for the unveiling of a hella big graf-artists vs. vandal squad Armageddon. Pretty unlikely, but we'll go along with it.
“I'll tell you what, I really like that they had LEE and TATS cru in there and that piece on the Brooklyn Bridge...I think it's really up there,” Estria said.
Some parts were cheesy and over-explanatory, but saying that is nit-picking. All in the entire flick is cool. I guess some people aren't at all exposed to graf art or its techniques. Estria put it best when he said: “Man, those things are obvious to me but the general public don't know that, they don't bomb, or watch graffiti videos.”
He went on to say: “It's slick for an indie film. Some of these shots are real beautiful...good color you know. I got one real problem with it though, the star. Why's it gotta be a dopey, dorky SF-looking writer? It bugs me that the star is a white dude. Why'd he pick this guy? He coulda picked anybody on earth."
Here's the verdict: If you're a graf writer, you won't learn anything new; your life won't be changed. So don't expect that. It's a story you're familiar with. If you don't know a whole lot about graffiti art or graffiti culture than you'll get a rough idea of what a writer is and does. Either way, you'll enjoy the flick. It's put together beautifully and the visuals are dope. It's choppy, gritty and the beats are cool.
I mean, it's cool just on the strength of the sheer destruction caused by the on camera bombing. I mean, you're always gonna cool if you're blacklisted from ever taping in NYC. Plus, there’s tons of real graf writers, too.
Go see Bomb the System, showing in the San Francisco Independent Film Festival (www.sfindie.com), on Feb. 13th and 15th at the Roxie Theater, 3117 16th Street at Valencia. 1 of 1
