B+Directed by Joseph Kahn Starring Callum Worthy, Jackie Long, and Rory Uphold Review by Jon Kissel |  |
When director Joseph Kahn shows up on a podcast, he’s going to be a provocative presence. Filterless and blunt, Kahn doesn’t hold anything back about the movie industry or whatever else is on his mind. He finds a topic to match his personality in Bodied, a confrontational film about battle rap and a dozen other things. Produced by Eminem and co-written with Kahn by rapper Kid Twist, Bodied brings a feel of authenticity to its world while Kahn gives the rhythmic and visceral battle rap arenas all the cinematic power the director of Torque can provide.
Bodied centers white Berkeley student Adam (Callum Worthy) who starts as an admirer writing a graduate thesis on battle rap, and becomes a participant after discovering a talent for rhymes and spontaneous lyrics. Being a good progressive with a star professor father (Anthony Michael Hall) and a humorless vegan girlfriend named Maya (Rory Uphold), Adam is resistant to dive headfirst into the racial and gender stereotypes that dominate battle rap, but in his first contest against Korean American rapper Prospek (Dumbfoundead), the crowd doesn’t respond to Adam’s inoffensiveness. His running internal monologue has been batting down possibilities for Asian jokes, but the moment demands them, and Adam does well in his debut with a stream of invective, punctuated by a gay slur. He wins against Prospek and gains his and star battle rapper Behn Grym’s (Jackie Long) respect. Rising in this world means falling in the academic one, but Adam craves the acceptance of the battle rappers far more than he does Maya and his father.
Bodied is as dense with ideas as a rap battle is with language, particularly as a parody of the low-hanging fruit of academia. The battlers are people, capable of humor and introspection and personality. The university crowd are scolds, up on in-group language at the cost of spontaneity and solidarity with anyone not at their level. They use that power either for female attention in the case of Adam’s father or as a way to feel superior to people who will be either cast out or condescendingly elevated once their group finally seizes power somehow. The more a group takes themselves seriously, the more ripe they are for satire. PC insufferables are an easy target, but a delicious one. Maya has an impossible role in this film as a barrier to action, but the character as written and portrayed is so recognizable and acidic that it’s hard to hold it against Bodied. She’s only one of several memorable performances, especially amongst the battle rappers who burst with charisma. The film quickly establishes what qualifies as good and bad within the art form, and to be good is rightfully shown as a feat of supreme command of language. As rapper Devine Wright, Shoniqua Shandai bursts off the screen with her emphatic delivery, while Long brings an unshakable decency to his character. When it’s not skewering the ivory tower, racial representation and presentation is Bodied’s other big concern. What Adam is and isn’t allowed to do or say is the film’s key dilemma. How good does he have to be at battle rapping to drop an n-word, and should he say it even if he reaches that level? Does Adam’s privilege in the outside world persist, even as he becomes a pariah at Berkeley and sleeps on a park bench? Bodied functions as its own thesis, a fascinating exploration of a subculture that’s also inherently cinematic thanks to that subculture’s considerable charms. B+
Bodied is as dense with ideas as a rap battle is with language, particularly as a parody of the low-hanging fruit of academia. The battlers are people, capable of humor and introspection and personality. The university crowd are scolds, up on in-group language at the cost of spontaneity and solidarity with anyone not at their level. They use that power either for female attention in the case of Adam’s father or as a way to feel superior to people who will be either cast out or condescendingly elevated once their group finally seizes power somehow. The more a group takes themselves seriously, the more ripe they are for satire. PC insufferables are an easy target, but a delicious one. Maya has an impossible role in this film as a barrier to action, but the character as written and portrayed is so recognizable and acidic that it’s hard to hold it against Bodied. She’s only one of several memorable performances, especially amongst the battle rappers who burst with charisma. The film quickly establishes what qualifies as good and bad within the art form, and to be good is rightfully shown as a feat of supreme command of language. As rapper Devine Wright, Shoniqua Shandai bursts off the screen with her emphatic delivery, while Long brings an unshakable decency to his character. When it’s not skewering the ivory tower, racial representation and presentation is Bodied’s other big concern. What Adam is and isn’t allowed to do or say is the film’s key dilemma. How good does he have to be at battle rapping to drop an n-word, and should he say it even if he reaches that level? Does Adam’s privilege in the outside world persist, even as he becomes a pariah at Berkeley and sleeps on a park bench? Bodied functions as its own thesis, a fascinating exploration of a subculture that’s also inherently cinematic thanks to that subculture’s considerable charms. B+
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