THE PLAYERS CLUB, directed and written by Ice Cube director of photography, Malik Sayeed music composed by Hidden Faces production designer, Dina Lipton edited by Suzanne Hines produced by Patricia Ch arbonnet executive producer, Ice Cube. Rated R, this film contains obscenities, lots of nudity, erotic dancing, sadistic tortures, a bloody rape, assorted acts of destruction and mayhem. Cube also has written a few good lines, as when Ronnie wraps up her hard paddling of a cop at a private party with “You’re lucky it’s Black History Month, or it would have been a lot worse.” On the other hand, this relatively low- budget effort is often more engaging and amusing than the earlier, white version of the single mother / stripper tale starring Demi Moore. At this point, Cube seems to have more ambition than ability. The plotting is sometimes chaotic, and the staging of a big brawl at the club is a real mess, a confused melee of thrashing bodies, thrown punches and smashing glass and furniture. Cube also gives his morality tale a lesbian villainess, Chrystale Wilson’s sneering, platinum Ronnie, to be bested in a prolonged slugfest by the fearlessly rough Diamond. It also abounds in crude humor and vicious tricks, such as a gangster’s tormenting of a club gatekeeper by trapping his head in a car window, and then driving in circles. Mostly though, “The Players Club” has the artless look of a quickie. Here and there, he tries out a few other inventive ideas. Enraged at her sass, Dick Anthony Williams’ father Armstrong cuts Diana off without a penny.īeginning with an exterior shot of the Armstrong’s white ranch house, Cube shows the argument in silhouette through a window, then cuts to the interior. Diana, later Diamond, refuses to attend the college of her daddy’s choice, setting her sights on a higher educational standard. LisaRaye, previously featured in music videos and in the independent film “Reasons,” provides an appealing and voluptuous heroine as the dancing Diamond, who tries to do the right thing for her son Jamal and for her cousin Ebony, who becomes the pivotal figure in this soft- porn soap opera.Ĭube, who also served as executive producer and a member of the cast, proves a less-than-inspired filmmaker, though he begins well, surveying a blowup between daughter and father at the all-American Armstrong homestead. In “The Players Club,” writer/director Ice Cube serves up his own version of “Showgirls” and “Striptease,” set in a low-rent Georgia dive and centering on a single mom, majoring in journalism by day, peeling by night.
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