Straight Out of Brooklyn

From its powerhouse opening, in which young, gifted and black New Yorker Dennis (Gilliard) is woken by his father's ferocious attack on his mother, it's immediately evident that Rich's low-budget debut as writer-director will be a no-holds-barred affair. Dennis has had it with his dad's drunkenly despairing rages, even though they're fired by poverty and racism; so, despite his plans to go to college and his girlfriend's vows that she'll leave him if he does anything illegal, his desire to make fast money for his family impels him to coax a couple of friends into joining him in armed robbery. If this harrowing melodrama is raw and occasionally a mite predictable in terms of plot, its emotional maturity, honesty and assurance are suggestive of a talent far older than the film-maker's 19 years.