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Fear Of A Black Hat
R2 - United Kingdom - Network Review written by and copyright: Sam Scott (16th June 2006). |
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The Film
 Fear Of A Black Hat originally came about after writer/director/star Rusty Cundieff shot a shortened version of the film on a small budget of just $600. After showing it to the people at ITC, they gave the project a greenlight, but didn't want to give it a budget of $1million, so instead gave Cundieff a meagre $999,999.99 with which to shoot a feature length version. Starring Mark Christopher Lawrence (K-Pax, Christmas With The Kranks) as Tone Def, Larry B. Scott (The Karate Kid, Revenge Of The Nerds 1-4) as Tasty Taste and Cundieff himself as Ice Cold, Fear Of A Black Hat was the first film to ever sell out a midnight showing at Cannes, and afterwards, did it a few more times over the duration of the festival, and with good reason. The film is a fake documentary / comedy (also known as a mockumentary) which pretty much rips off the idea of Rob Reiner's hugely successful (and brilliant) This Is Spinal Tap. The only difference between the two films is that This Is Spinal Tap follows a rock band, and FOABH follows a rap group NWH (Niggaz Wit Hats) whose name is a rip off of the successful rappers NWA (Niggaz Wit Attitude). It follows NWH from when they are at the bottom of the scrapheap, and their rapid rise into fame and number one singles after controversy surrounding the song Fear Of A Black Hat. As we see the group fall out, get back together, fight and generally wreak havoc, the film drags you in more and more. Fear Of A Black Hat, although not quite of the same ilk as This Is Spinal Tap, suffers from some mediocre acting at times, but the pace of the film makes it hard to notice. The jokes are fast and funny, particularly if have at least some form of knowledge of rap (I don't but enough to get the jokes). Questions like why are so many rappers called Ice are answered as we go through the highs and lows of one year with NWH. Not the greatest film ever made and won't win any major awards, but it is certainly worth the price on the ticket.
Video
Network have provided us with a cropped version of the film at 4:3. Why they did this, we'll never know but it becomes even more frustrating with the fact that the end credits are shown in the OAR of 1.85:1. Not only is the film poorly cropped, but because it isn't anamorphic it illuminates other minor problems more than it should such as being noisy here and there. At least it's pan and scan though I suppose.
Audio
Although we've been given the original Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track in English, the film relies heavily on it's musical element and could've sounded so much better with a nice pumping 5.1 track making use of the LFE for the bass of the rap tracks. As it is, we don't have any problems with the track that has been provided though, apart from minor hiss in the background.
Extras
Just a couple of trailers unfortunately. One for the video release and one for the theatrical release.
Overall
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