All ‘Get Out’: Raz’s ‘Chocolate’ is cheap immitation
When your film opens with the notation “Quentin Tarantino presents …,” you’d like to think the folks behind the camera would strive to earn that lofty endorsement. But not the RZA. His insipid “One Spoon of Chocolate” does anything but, embarrassing himself with a lazy, discombobulated “Get Out” retread that thrives on tired racial tropes and subpar acting by his not-ready-for-primetime ensemble.
It’s impossible to tell if it’s a film meant to be taken seriously, as there are numerous moments when it flirts with being a parody of itself. Such as setting it in the fictional hamlet of Karensville, Ohio, a small town with all the stereotypes of 1960s Mississippi, complete with a redneck sheriff sporting a lazy Southern drawl. In Ohio? There’s even a reasonable facsimile of the Ku Klux Klan headed by the lawman’s witless offspring.
Why any self-respecting Black folk would want to live among these cretons is a mystery almost as big as why any person of color would want to relocate there. But that’s exactly what Army veteran
Randy “Unique” Joneson does upon his release from prison after serving a stretch for A&B. That Randy is portrayed by the sweet, mild-mannered Shameik Moore, aka Miles Morales from “Spider-Verse,” is our first clue that scant attention was paid to the casting.
Moore, a generally fine actor, is much too gentile to sell us on the idea that Randy is the second coming of Billy Jack, Buford Pusser, or any other self-appointed vigilante looking to clean house after being done wrong by a town of mouth-breathing goobers. He’s solid in the film’s quieter moments, but laughable when he’s single-handedly devouring a plate full of toothless crackers armed to the hilt. Perhaps their/our underestimation of Randy is the point. He’s smarter than they are, a MacGiver wannabe able to fashion weapons out of raw materials in addition to being hip to the ways of ancient Chinese warriors.
The latter provides RZA with a vehicle to fully satisfy his wuxia fetish, while the film randomly oscillates between pure grindhouse and the basic elements of Blacksploitation. And if that wasn’t enough, he tosses in a romance between Randy and Darla (Paris Jackson, daughter of Michael) that’s devoid of sexual heat. And is that really Blair Underwood pitching in with a cameo eerily similar to the one he lent “Youngblood” a few weeks back?
He has a grand total of three scenes as Randy’s probation officer, Beem, a guy so lenient that he doesn’t bother to check up when Randy is a week late reporting. He’s also the one encouraging Randy to control his inner Hulk, but how can he when he’s repeatedly confronted by people foolishly looking to piss him off? His answer? Karensville! That’s where his cousin, Ramsee (CJ Cyler), offers Randy a home and a love interest in Darla, the BFF of Ramsee’s girlfriend, Aretha (Emyri Crutchfield).
In no time, Randy manages to anger Jimmy (Harry Goodwins), the white supremacist son of the Bull Connor-ish Sheriff McLeoud (Michael Harney, poorly channeling Rod Steiger in “The Heat of the Night”). That’s the extent of the plot, as Randy spends the rest of the movie hiding out in Darla’s garage, forging weapons and training “Rocky”-style in preparation for the final showdown with Jimmy and his goons, a rumble that will leave all of the white dudes shot, stabbed, or beaten to a pulp.
Missing is any hint of subtlety and complexity, as RZA operates on the theory that white not bright and Black will shellac. It gets boring fast, a shortcoming exacerbated by the fact that – unlike “Get Out” – we know from the get-go the “big secret” the town is hiding behind the Legion Hall inside a makeshift OR decorated with dozens of depictions of Blacks in servitude to whites.
No surprise that the graphic racial slurs and legal frame-ups abound. In the service of what? I doubt if RZA, who wrote the script in addition to directing, knows. He’s all about the spectacle, and the cheesy metaphor of how a spoonful of canned cocoa can create change as soon as it’s emptied into a glass of milk. All you need to do is stir. But RZA omits that vital step in leaving us with an unsatisfying mix of trite ideas and diluted ambition utterly unworthy of Tarantino’s misguided shoutout.
Movie review
RZA’s One Spoon of Chocolate
Rated: R for strong violence, sexual content, nudity, drug use, racial slurs, language throughout, some gore
Cast: Shameik Moore, RJ Cyler, Paris Jackson, Michael Harney, Harry Goodwins, Blair Underwood and Emyri Crutchfield
Director: RZA
Writer: RZA
Runtime: 110 minutes
Where: In theaters May 1 (limited)
Grade: D
