True to the Game

True to the Game trilogy is my favorite urban fiction collection, hands down. I had such high hopes for the film. Things I liked: Colombus Short surprisingly portrayed Quadir better than I initially thought he would. The clothing choice for the men was on point and stayed true to how I imagined them to look, based on the book. Qua's right hand man, Tyriq, was very convincing. I enjoyed his character. Jarell had some off moments, but I think his character was well-played and added the nemesis-type flair to keep it interesting. Things I didn't like: Gena is quite lovely as I imagined but her acting was sub-par at best, as was 95% of the cast! Rasun, Qua's other righthand, was absolutely unconvincing. Draya, Shirell, could've been left out of the movie altogether. She has no acting ability at all. Aubrey was not in the books at all. Her character was forced and she added no value to the movie in my opinion, just like Shirell.

Those are major components off the top of my head. I wanted to see a classic, to match the legend of the books. I watched it 3x in 2days to come to my final conclusion, but at best; I'd consider this a B-league film. An exponentially higher budget and a more experienced cast would have placed this film at the top. I believe TTTG would be mentioned with the likes of Goodfellas, Paid in Full, Dead Presidents, etc had it been given the proper resources and due diligence it deserves. Very disappointing. I would love to see it continue with the major escrow this one needed, maybe even scrapped and remade from scratch. The movie does the legacy of Quadir and Gena absolutely no justice whatsoever! Come harder next time, Miss Woods. We need stories like yours on the big screen!

The movie was entertaining, bling bling, message throughout typical because you know, to live that kind of life, it's going to end the way it did probably even worse...Critics and people who review throw words & negatives around like it's nothing when this movie production was everything, good acting...R.I.P Nelsan Ellis...Most folk who in my opinion in some cases have no idea how hard it is to screenplay a successful movie, While I would never want to sell my soul for love of money with this for certain predictable tragic end, this movie was good and I give this 6 conservative stars!

Surprisingly, I find myself agreeing with the LA Times and New York Times critics on this one. The movie is so terrible people left the theater before it was half over. To make matters worst, the novel was amazingly well done and seemed hard to mess up. The movie plot and story line are so nonsensical, and hilariously unconvincing, it's hard to imagine anyone but amateurs put any work into this film. With the exception of Columbus, and maybe one other person, the casting and acting are so horrible one wonders who was in charge of quality control. The special effects, to the extent they could be called that, seemed to be from the 70s, as the film is very low budget and wrought with cheap, almost invisible action scenes. Yet, it's packed with long meaningless conversations that left me longing for the next scene. Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the movie is that it is so unbelievably boring, you're left thinking it has to get better and it actually gets worst until the credits appear. I found myself wondering who gave the thumbs up to such a poor movie and why such a great novel received such a low budget and obvious lack of cinematic support. The movie isn't worth purchasing on demand. I would recommend waiting for Netflix as it's not going to last in theaters much longer.

It's not cool to use a title from a well known book about "the game" and make a movie this bad. What's the number to the refund hot line? I am not joking. This movie should have never been released unless it was on YouTube. I thought about giving it two stars because Columbus Short did a decent job with the little he had and the music wasn't bad. But I can't. it's a joke. This nonsense has to stop.

I've read the books & unless they are going to make a part 2 & 3 it falls a little flat at the end. If they choose not to I suggest read the books to find out the True ending.