If I had one thing to say to filmmakers everywhere, I would say this:
Never open a movie by showing your audience the definition of a word, especially a word so common as the word "tick." It's very insulting.
That's how Mob Rules starts out. Before its first scene, the audience is treated to the text of the dictionary definition of the word "tick." Do you know what that word means? It's not exactly an SAT vocab word, so you probably have a guess. Even if you don't, you're likely to feel insulted by the director who automatically assumes you've never heard the word. It can mean several things, from the ticking of a clock, to a blood-sucking insect. Where the aesthetic comes in of including a definition of a word is a mystery.
Now that you are fully aware of what the word "tick" means, you're ready to watch Mob Rules, a convoluted and confusing array of scenes that never becomes the story they so desperately try to be. Think of the movie Snatch but lazy and lacking any kind of motivation or energy.
The story begins when we meet two burglars, Anton (Treva Etienne) and Tyrone (Gary McDonald). You can tell they are the good-natured kind of thieves by the way they elegantly quote Shakespeare, and clumsily rob an empty house in England. The story is set into motion when Anton, who is unsatisfied with their night's looting, makes some kind of sideways suggestion to go to the United States: "Tyrone, how about a paid vacation?" And then a clumsy transition to the streets of Los Angeles.
It's not really until twenty or so minutes into the movie that we really start to understand what the hell is going on. We eventually get the idea that Anton wants to rob the notorious gangster C-Note, (Lennie James), who operates a club in Los Angeles. Through bits and pieces of flashbacks of Anton's life, we learn that C-Note got his wealth by somehow screwing over Anton's older brother during a heist -- a heist that left his older brother dead. Or at least, this is how Anton views it.
The trouble with the heist is that there isn't much of a goal. It's just sort of "to rob C-Note." Later Anton and Tyrone learn there is about $200,000 that they could get from some accountant who works with people who work for some thugs who work for C-Note who work in his club who work for some drug dealers who work for some other thugs and hold on I'm getting a nosebleed. It's too many characters, and it's hard to keep track of them since almost none of them play any kind of important part in Anton's scheme. The movie tries to mimic the complex blue-print of an Ocean's 11-type heist, but in the end, it's laughable as to how simple it all could have been, especially when it boils down to Anton and Tyrone sticking their guns in someone's face and demanding the money.
And, as the movie's opening foreshadows, the characters will wind up in a tense standoff with several parties pointing guns at one another, and inevitably there will be a big ol' shootout. Unfortunately, as it does so in many scenes, the film calls attention to its small budget, and the shootout that the movie builds up to is nothing but an exercise in poor digital effects. Digital blasts coming from barrels of guns that don't quite match up to their recoil. Digital bloodstains that look far too opaque and don't quite move in concert with the characters. And there are even super tacky bullet-time effects that give the illusion the characters are actually dodging oncoming fire. It's a messy shootout, and for all the wrong reasons.
The movie's original title was Tic, which, given its theme of time and how one uses it in his life, is a thousand times more appropriate than Mob Rules. On the surface this is a B-rated thriller with few thrills. At the center of it, it's obvious that the director had more to say with his characters, who were not terribly written. But even with a bigger budget, this would have fallen flat, as it just wasn't creative or original enough to keep an audience interested all the way to the end.
DVD Bonus Features
There's a trailer, some interviews with the cast and writer/director Keith Parmer, and a hip R&B music video made for the film.
"Mob Rules" is on sale May 17, 2011 and is rated R. Crime-Thriller. Written and directed by Keith Parmer. Starring Gary Mcdonald, Lennie James, Tina Casciani, Treva Etienne.
