Shottas

Movie / Show Details

Amazon.com

In Jamaican patois, a gangster is a “shotta” or “shot-caller.” Like The Harder They Come and Third World Cop, Cess Silvera choreographs his crime drama to a reggae beat. Bob Marley’s son Stephen provides the music, while Wyclef Jean drops by as a dealer. The saga begins in late-1970s Kingston. Teenagers Biggs (J.R. Silvera) and Wayne (Carlton Grant Jr.) have had their fill of poverty, so they get a gun and start looting and shooting like the shottas they idolize. Flash forward 20 years and Biggs (Stephen’s actor/musician brother, Kymani Marley) has just been deported from the States. He picks up where he left off, joining Wayne (DJ Spragga Benz) and the psychopathic Mad Max (Paul Campbell, Dancehall Queen) in the thug life. As with Pacino’s Tony Montana, Miami is their ultimate port of call. Silvera acknowledges the debt to Brian De Palma’s Scarface, but there isn’t as much drama here–just a lot of violence (spurting blood is a running motif). Cinematographer Cliff Charles uses all manner of visual trickery to lively up the joint, like grainy black and white, slow motion, and jump cuts. The soundtrack also helps to keep things moving, but it’s hard to feel sympathy for those who feel no sympathy for anyone but themselves. Vicious as he was, Montana still had a smidgen of sensitivity. As with The Harder They Come, this English-language production is subtitled due to strong accents and pervasive slang. –Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description

In the tradition of “Scarface” and “The Harder They Come”, “Shottas” is an unapologetic, raw urban drama about two young men, Wayne (Spragga Benz) and Biggs (Kymani Marley), who begin a life of crime from Kingston, Jamaica to Miami while staying loyal to their shottas bonds.