Gang Tapes (Lions Gate, VHS priced for rental, DVD $24.99, rated R) 2000. Directed by Adam Ripp. Starring Trivell, Darontay McClendon, Darris Love, Don Cambell and Sonja Marie.
The small-budget but powerful Gang Tapes makes its world premiere on video.
The film makes an immediate impact and never lets up. A typical middle-class white family on vacation in Hollywood gets attacked when they make a wrong turn into South Central Los Angeles. That’s the last we see of the world outside of the South Central neighborhood inhabited and controlled by this group of gang members, friends and family.
A 14-year-old named Kris grabs the carjacked family’s camcorder (we never know for sure what happens to the family) and begins recording the activities in the day-to-day life of drug deals, fights, sex, crimes, killings and survival.
It’s a startling and well-produced chronicle of life for the young man that feels quite authentic and, thus, quite unsettling.
