Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Cut Throat City’ on Netflix, RZA’s Ambitious Saga About Disaffected Men Lost in Post-Katrina New Orleans

Now on Netflix after premiering on VOD last fall, Cut Throat City is the third directorial effort by RZA, the multi-hyphenate filmmaker-writer-musician who’s best known as the leader of hip-hop collective Wu-Tang Clan. His previous films were tonally disparate — the kung fu theatrics of 2012’s The Man with the Iron Fists and the relatively straightforward drama of 2017’s Love Beats Rhymes. With the new movie, he seems to be trying to bridge the gap between genres.

CUT THROAT CITY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Blink (Shameik Moore) lives in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. It’s 2005. Hurricane Katrina has rendered the area a vaguely policed near-outlaw state. Its residents, primarily people of color, cynically call it a situation of “accelerated gentrification.” Blink wants to be an artist, but his pitch to sell a graphic novel is met with condescension. His portfolio is fat, but so is the pile of bills on his counter. His new wife, Demyra (Kat Graham), works to keep food in the fridge for their young son; she’s supportive, as long as he stays out of trouble. And their application for FEMA aid is denied, inexplicably.

His closest friends aren’t faring much better: Junior (Keean Johnson) has few prospects, Andre (Denzel Whitaker) is a struggling jazz musician and Miracle (Demetrius Shipp Jr.) is a streetcorner drug dealer. They don’t have much to do besides debate whether Tarantino uses the n-word too much in his movies, and watch their neighborhood crumble. It’s a situation that feeds disaffection and desperation — and justification for doing the wrong thing. The four men connect with local gangster Cousin (T.I.), and if you’re wondering what type of guy he might be, well, he not only hosts raccoon fights, but if you can’t cover your bets, his raccoon ends up hanging from your nethers. Before you know it, Blink and his buds are heisting 150K from a casino and getting into car chases and shootouts with cops and possibly getting away with it, although maybe not totally unscathed.

There’s much more to this story than four men and their righteous crime spree. One of the only good cops in New Orleans, Lucinda Valencia (Eiza Gonzalez), is on their trail, although she may be sympathetic to Blink’s plight; Courtney (Rob Morgan) is one of the bad cops. Two of New Orleans’ silent power brokers are Jackson Symms (Ethan Hawke), a city official who isn’t above doing a dirty deal, and The Saint (Terrence Howard), a coke lord who quotes the Bible like he’s Jules Winnfield. And Blink leads his cohorts to his estranged fisherman father’s Black Snake Moan swamp shack, and of course the estranged fisherman father is played by Wesley Snipes. These many things, as such things tend to go, heat up and come to a head and all that.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Besides a blatant Wizard of Oz reference, RZA’s goal seems obvious: finding a sweet spot between Tarantino and Spike Lee.

Performance Worth Watching: Snipes’ gruff characterization is the type of color the film needs — and it’s unlikely moral center.

Memorable Dialogue: Demyra makes a firm statement of upsetting truth: “I can’t trust the police, sir.”

Sex and Skin: Male and female hindquarters; scenes set in skeezy gentlemen’s clubs.

Our Take: RZA and screenwriter P.G. Cuschieri’s ambition is prevalent. Cut Throat City attempts to marry the gentrification drama of Blindspotting with the gripping thrills of a heist thriller like Widows, but only finds a swampy middle ground, its narrative sluggish and in need of tighter focus. It’s a bumpy watch with a couple of strong action sequences bookending the core plot, and a lot of at-best mildly memorable stuff in-between.

The story may have been better served by emphasizing the powerless denizens of the Lower Ninth Ward — Moore, Johnson, Whitaker and Shipp enjoy some strong interplay, establishing the film’s emotional center. Yet the spotlight on them only gets tighter, the screenplay wedging in a messy sprawl of characters who don’t pop off the screen like they should, e.g., Hawke and Howard’s colorful and shadowy power brokers. I get it: These corrupt men are bent on reshaping New Orleans to their vision, which will be lucrative for both parties. Both are blackhearted criminals. And there’s no room in the city for guys like Blink.

So the righteous tone of Cut Throat City is admirable, but it doesn’t involve us as intimately as it should. Nor does it hum with the colorful characters and dialogue of Tarantino and Lee’s films; RZA’s attempts to emulate these innovators is more watery pastiche than a smooth integration of influences. Somewhere here is a strong movie, but as it stands, it’s more smeary mishmash than bold statement.

Our Call: SKIP IT. It kind of pains me to say it, but Cut Throat City is kind of a disappointment. It tries to do a lot, but ultimately doesn’t do enough.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Watch Cut Throat City on Netflix