Based on a Book

King David never let anything stand in his way, as he clawed his way out of tyhe mean streets. If it took busting an old lady's head open with a Coke bottle for her last dollar, so be it. Mixing battery acid with cocaine to gain revenge was acceptable, to... Read More

King David never let anything stand in his way, as he clawed his way out of tyhe mean streets. If it took busting an old lady's head open with a Coke bottle for her last dollar, so be it. Mixing battery acid with cocaine to gain revenge was acceptable, too. Whatever it took. Then he made it big-- only to find others had not forgotten, had no intention of forgiving. They came after him. He left behind a Cadillac and a diary, left it to a writer Donald Goines called "Paul Pawlowski." Like all Goines' novels, Never Die alone is based on truth.

There's nothing like a violent, foul-mouthed, drug-laden, misogynistic, post-adolescent gangsta fantasy to teach you (heh heh) that crime doesn't pay. Whassup with Never Die Alone, bro? Here's a pulp-driven movie that wants it both ways, glorifying virtua... Read More

There's nothing like a violent, foul-mouthed, drug-laden, misogynistic, post-adolescent gangsta fantasy to teach you (heh heh) that crime doesn't pay. Whassup with Never Die Alone, bro? Here's a pulp-driven movie that wants it both ways, glorifying virtually every negative black-male stereotype in the book (illiterates with absentee parents, gold-toothed pimps, hooded gangstas, bling-bling drug dealers, thugs, and assorted hip-hop wannabes) while presenting a gritty neo-noir crime story of an ill-fated heroin dealer and woman-hater (rapper-turned-bad-actor DMX) who seeks redemption but has too much bad karma to survive. Based on the influential 1974 novel by Donald Goines and directed with plenty of dark-city style by Ernest R. Dickerson, this hard-hitting but woefully trashy crime thriller is rather ambitious in its narrative structure, weaving past and present in telling a doomed man's tale. David Arquette brings urgent desperation to his role as a seedy writer whose inner-city research turns into a violent nightmare, and Michael Ealy is equally good as a vengeful gangsta with blood ties to DMX's character. But what's the real lesson here? In a movie with no moral compass, it's no wonder everyone's spinning off in all the wrong directions. --Jeff Shannon