Waist Deep

He gave us Glitter, and yet actor Vondie Curtis Hall is actually a fine director. His underrated debut, 1997’s Gridlock’d, was much more thoughtful than you’d think. Its B-movie stupidities aside, so too is Waist Deep, Curtis Hall’s latest. The plot is pure urban fantasy: In an attempt to rescue his son from kidnapping carjackers, an ex-con named O2 (Tyrese Gibson) all but bulldozes through all of L.A. with a hot sidekick (Meagan Good). But Curtis Hall keeps slipping in surprising social and emotional flavorings rarely found in the genre. As long as his next movie’s not a Glitter sequel, we’re there.