Bodied (2018) - Movie Review

 

Hip-hop, as a musical genre, is one born of both remixing existing material and proclaiming one’s superiority. “I am awesome, more so than you” is one of the most commonly rapped-about topics, and in the right hands, it can make for some powerful work. This takes on an even greater context in the realm of battle rap, where wordplay and rhymes become weapons in a war of wits, particularly in tournaments and battle leagues specifically designed for it.

It’s a topic that’s made its way into the realms of cinema before, like that all-time suburban white boy classic 8 Mile, and this film comes from the same gene pool with Eminem producing it. Of course, considering Em’s fall from grace as a result of working on 8 Mile, that news should already be sending some warning flares, but thankfully, this film turns out good. Like, really fucking good.

The script is written by Alex Larsen, also known as Kid Twist, a veteran of the battle rap scene and a regular of King Of The Dot, a Canadian battle rap league that has hosted some of the most seminal verbal bouts in the industry. His writing feels very genuine as a result of that, both in the all-killer-no-filler quality of the battle raps themselves and in his examinations of the game itself. His depiction of the industry is an extremely cutthroat one, where literally anything that can be used against someone for a punchline gets used. From ethnicity to gender to social class to gimmicks, nothing is out-of-bounds.

Through that, he and director Joseph Kahn get into discussions regarding shock humour and the idea that the atmosphere of a rap battle essentially makes it a safe space for all things offensive. Think of it like a game of Cards Against Humanity done entirely in rhyme and you have an idea of where the “rules” lie. Of course, that very way of thinking leads to the notion that, if someone needs to be in a safe space to say things regarding someone’s race or culture or just their existence as a person, maybe there’s a reason why such things aren’t accepted outside of that space.

From the perspective of Adam, a college student who goes from writing a thesis about the use of the N-word in rap battles to taking part in battles himself, we see how this kind of no holds barred lyrical assault has become something of a lingering problem, especially with how many white battle rappers there are in the scene. Larsen shows incredible salience in how he links the begrudging acceptance of political incorrectness in these battles to a more prevalent issue in modern society: Freedom of speech.

In lieu of derailing this entire review to examine just how warped that idea has become in recent years, I’ll just leave it at how most 'champions' of free speech nowadays tend to mean free(dom from consequences of) speech, not to mention how most of us are also free to not have to hear that shit, something else they tend to forget. In the words of Anthony Michael Hall as Adam’s father: There is no private life. In the Internet age, nothing is kept under wraps for long, and words tend to travel.

But this film ends up taking on another layer entirely when in context to the real world of battle rap, in particular where the cast members of this film fit into it. The film’s villain Megaton is played by rapper Dizaster, whose aggressive and up-close-and-personal delivery shown on screen are actually accurate to his real-life persona. As is his tendency to get into punch outs with his opponents, like with Math Hoffa back in 2014. Then there’s Calum Worthy as Adam, whose real-life history as a former Disney Channel actor seeps into some of the bars that are said against him in the ring.

There’s also Simon Rex as promoter Donnie Narco, showing just how much playing not-Rabbit in Scary Movie 3 would end up painting a lot of his career afterwards, given his own history as the rapper Dirt Nasty. And then we got Shoniqua Shandai and underground heavyweight Dumbfoundead as Devine Write and Prospek respectively, who take the film’s notions of putting down their opponents, flip the script, and show off a form of self-deprecating badassery that fits in nicely with Dumbfoundead’s snarkier cuts like Safe.

As both a film geek and a fan of all things hip-hop, having spent a lot of time watching rap battle vids in college myself, this is a straight-up godsend of a film for someone like me. The acting is on point, the lyricism even more so with some great visual touches from Joseph Kahn and DOP Matt Wise to build on them, and the depiction of the battle rap scene is both authentic and more than willing to point out the lingering problems with the entire enterprise. And not only that, but those very problems are ones that have been seeping into a lot of modern-day discourse and have been making the term "free speech" into a fit-to-bursting can of worms. Even beyond the hip-hop head appeal, this is a seriously good watch and well worth the time… even if it means paying directly into YouTube’s pockets in order to see it.