Superfly

Music video auteur Director X's Superfly re-hash is all about excess -- too much money, too much sex, too much cocaine, too much blood, too much trust, too much hate, just too much -- and it all adds up to a surprisingly satisfying ride. The wonderfully charismatic young actor Trevor Jackson (Grown-ish) stars as the elegantly "processed" Youngblood Priest, a major player in the Atlanta drug trade who is off everyone's grid until he dodges a bullet that ends up in the gut of a bystander. Then, as they say, shit gets real. Helping Priest move weight and avoid drug rival Snow Patrol's loose guns are his BFF Eddie (an outstanding Jason Mitchell best known to me from Mudbound and Straight Outta Compton) and his winsome muse Georgia (Lex Scott Davis) and her gangsta bitch girlfriend Cynthia (Andrea Londo). Director X and screenwriter Alex Tse have crafted a crackling film that pops with snappy wit and artfully choreographed throwdowns that is a fitting, if not all together reverent, homage to Gordon Parks Jr.'s 1972 original.