Rap battles land hard blows
Everything about “Bodied,” a dramatic satire set in the world of rap battles, is supercharged, from the aggressive/goofy camera work to the outsize performances to the increasingly abrasive take on hot-button issues like cultural appropriation and misogyny in rap (among many, many others).
A white UC Berkeley grad student (Calum Worthy as Adam) working on a thesis about the “n-word” dives into the very non-white underground world of Oakland rap battles (think “Fight Club” but with the most eviscerating rhymes you can imagine) and ends up not only befriending his rapper idol (Jackie Long as Behn Grymm) but also becoming an unlikely battling rapper in his own right.
“We don’t need another white guy appropriating African American culture,” one observer says. “We don’t need Macklemore. We need Mackle-less.”
As true as that may be, Adam, the son of a famous literary critic played by Anthony Michael Hall, is shocked to discover reserves of rage and racism he didn’t know he had and even more shocked that his spewing of every vile thought in his head puts him in league with rappers he reveres in the Killerfornia Battle League. It might also be amusing and/or insightful to note here that one of the film’s producers is Eminem.
Director Joseph Kahn and writer Alex Larsen exhibit tremendous glee in their takedown of everything that even smacks of political correctness, though at two hours, that excitement causes much of the dramatic tension in the plot to dissipate before the climactic battles. But along the way, there are good laughs, brain-rattling battles (by the entertaining likes of Dumbfoundead and Dizaster) and the kind of incisive social commentary that actually surprises with its targets and revelations.