[English review] The King of the dancehall

T/n: This is the English version of a review written in French in 2017.

I don’t know if I’m being overly dramatic, if my expectations are too high… I’m writing this review less than 24 hours after watching this film, so maybe I should give myself more time to find positive elements to counter the negative ones I see… I read a few other reviews that feel like me, so let met just put it out there and move on.

I’m a huge fan of dance films. I can gloss over a thin plot as long as the dancing wows me. For the first 50 minutes of the film, I thought it was amateurishly cute but entertaining. It was Feel The Noise x You Got Served. I mean, I was into it, regardless of the plot. And then, during the second half, I went from disbelief to astonishment and I finished with resignation. Look, I watched and read Nick Cannon’s interviews because I had to understand why. I needed to understand why. I did feel that he was sincere in his approach to celebrate dancehall culture and at some extent Jamaican culture… But to me, the final result actually conveys a lack of understanding of dancehall culture.

I won’t talk about the music video-style directing that gave an overall flashy visual. I won’t talk about the cheesy dialogues nor the accent or the fact that lines in patois were subtitled. You’d know better than I do. I’ll just talk about the plot. To me, it reflects a lack of awareness of what being Caribbean in the 21st century is. If Nick Cannon wanted to highlight dancehall culture, it would have probably been better to do a real documentary : interviews with local artists, internationally known or not, dance crews, party promoters etc. This film uses dancehall culture to glorify him as an American. And this is the problem for me. I don’t understand the logic of wanting to pay homage to a culture by putting yourself first when you’re not even a part of this culture to begin with. First of all, why this “I’m Tarzan who conquers the dancehall kingdom in six months” concept? Tarzan is from the Jamaican diaspora, so I can get why the film wouldn’t care about the relationship between the Caribbean people living in the Caribbean and the diaspora. However, I don’t understand why it would give a caricature of the few cultural elements thrown in there. Its depiction of the life over there really got me angry and I’m not even Jamaican. Let’s not even talk about the representation of the women. The virgin vs. the temptress, are we being serious right now? The women in this film were barely one-dimensional. We know absolutely nothing about their dreams, their ambitions. We just know that they love dancing and they want to have sex with Tarzan. Awesome!

What about dancehall dancing? To Nick Cannon, it’s just women booty shaking in pum pum shorts while male dancers are rude boys and ganstas. Basically, Tarzan masters dancehall dancing in just six months. I’m not saying it’s impossible if you practice 24/7. This guy just waltz in, with no sense of the culture, he has never danced in his life (not even breakdancing, absolutely nothing) and we’re supposed to believe that he can become the leader of one of the best crews in Jamaica just like that. Not only does he become the leader without the knowledge of the dancehall vibe to dress up, without knowing how to entertain an audience, he even beats other crews without even doing astonishing movies (we don’t even get a glimpse creating a choreography). And everybody idolizes him. Beenie Man himself calls Tarzan “the true king of the dancehall”… I had to laugh. I just had to.

I’d rather see things in a positive perspective, but… Yes, dancehall culture is the roots of the biggest hits in pop music in the past 10 years (maybe even more). Yes, dancehall artists stay in the shadow of US artists who use them to spice up their sound. But was “King of The Dancehall” the answer to the cinematographic emptiness since “Dancehall Queen”? No.