Freestyle (2023) - Movie Review

Not a lot of Hip-Hop cinema came out this year, at least from what I could find. There was that House Party remake (made by the same guy who thought casting Jack Harlow in White Men Can't Jump was in any way appealing, and this same damn year at that), but otherwise… yeah, I had to look to Poland to find what I needed. And I specify “needed” because, as I consider Hip-Hop part of my personal cultural make-up, and 2023 marked the 50^th anniversary of that culture, it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t give it some shine before the year ended. Well, that and starring the lead from The Hater, one of my faves from 2020, helps too.

While the charisma and general appearance of Maciej Musiałowski as Diego has a certain Eminem vibe (as does just about every White rapper nowadays; rapping fast doesn’t change that you’re not saying anything, guys), the plot is closer to Uncut Gems with the bassline of early Guy Ritchie. We have Diego, in-between live performances (and credit to him, he’s got energy on-stage), in a mad scramble across the city to smooth over a bad coke deal. It doesn’t quite replicate the pure adrenaline cocktail that the Safdies could whip up in their sleep, but the further Diego digs into utter desperation tactics, it gets pretty intense.

It helps that the overall depiction of the Polish underground is quite entertaining. The characters are fun and colourful, the grungy aesthetic from director Maciej Bochniak and DP Kajetan Plis fits the sordid bill (as does the energetic soundtrack from Joachim Fiut, full of local rap bangers), and the way it shows that basically everyone is ripping off everyone else in some fashion, again, is reminiscent of flicks like Snatch and Lock Stock. I even like some of the smaller details, like the light worldbuilding to do with Diego’s father and his reputation in criminal circles, or seeing Diego trying to stretch out a brick using… a blender. Have to admit, haven’t heard of that one before; must’ve missed that part of Compton Chemistry.

And on the note of the shit Diego tries to pull in this, the way his character is fleshed out is, admittedly, fairly standard for this kind of ‘ticking clock to fix my fuck-up’ premise, but still makes for a decently compelling central figure. For a film about an aspiring rapper, the bare minimum is that at least one of his songs should reveal something about him (the 8 Mile formula may be cliché, but there’s a reason for that). And here, just before he gets clocked and dusted in flour, he lays out how his upbringing (or lack thereof) led to his current predicament, both as a criminal and as a public performer. Musiałowski may not have the same gravity as he did in The Hater, but he’s still putting in work.

At the end of the day, though, this is a pretty by-the-numbers street crime thriller. The aesthetics are solid, both visual and aural, the soundtrack bangs, and as a look at Polish cinema within this particular niche (another corner of the art world that I’m still feeling my way through), it was an interesting experience. It won’t be Scaring The Hoes anytime soon, but at least it didn’t knock itself out with its own Kickback.

Happy (belated) 50^th to the culture. May it keep getting newer every year, and here’s to all the breakers, sprayers, spinners, and spitters.