NFL
By: Matt Overton
The Sixteenth Joint
Sucker Free City is one of Spike Lee’s least viewed feature films on Letterboxd. This made for television movie was created for Showtime in the hopes of getting a new television series greenlit. Think The Wire but set in San Francisco. Unfortunately Showtime passed and nothing came after this movie. Maybe because this was made for TV and the plot seemed generic, but I had very low expectations going into this so I was very surprised to find myself extremely gripped by the story and characters.
There’s basically three separate plot lines involving a Black gang, a Chinese gang, and one lonely white boy getting mixed up in it all. Anthony Mackie is a power player in the V-Dubs Mafia called K-Luv, where he is raising a little twelve year old while helping to push drugs and bootleg CDs. Ken Leung is Lincoln Ma, an up and comer in the Chinese underworld who is relegated to collecting payments from all the business he “protects.” And Ben Crowley plays Nick, a teenager who is in way over his head but never lets on that he’s intimidated by the gang bangers and drug hustlers. His family is forced out of their neighborhood in The Mission due to gentrification and have to move to Hunter’s Point in the heart of V-Dubs territory.
This film is currently up on YouTube in an awful quality, but the presentation didn’t hamper the quality of the filmmaking. This might be a TV movie but Spike still poured all of his artistry into the project. This film is popping with a vibrant color palette as we traverse all sorts of San Franciscan streets and visit various locales. I enjoyed the text crawl introduction to each neighborhood. They serve as nice educational introductions to the three main hubs: Mission, Hunter’s Point, and Chinatown. The narrative mainly follows K-Luv as he has his fingers in numerous operations around the city. The relationship he builds with young Lil’ O is the beating heart of the film, and the tragic reality of growing up in the projects is always looming over their shoulders.
Being a made for television movie, Sucker Free City sets up a ton of plot that unfortunately cannot be resolved by the credits. Lincoln is doing his best to work his way up the chain through the goodwill of his vendors, while also getting mixed up in a kidnapping plot; K-Luv tries to keep the peace among the V-Dubs all while stirring up plenty of trouble; and Nick gets more and more involved in Hunter’s Point against the better wishes of his white collar family. As expected from a Spike Lee joint, there’s a hint of social commentary. The film explores the diversity of San Francisco while highlighting the class disparities that are present from one street to the next. It’s a wonderfully blended story about a very blended community.
Never bet against Spike, that’s the lesson learned here. He might have failed to get a series spawned from Sucker Free City, but what we’re left with is a solid ground-level crime drama. The characters are all well rounded with some incredible performances, specifically Anthony Mackie. Maybe it’s because he’s been stuck in the revolving door of the MCU for so many years where is talent goes unnoticed, but that man can seriously act! His performance grounds the whole joint, and his emotional trajectory is unbelievably tragic. Sucker Free City was surprisingly poignant, with tons of dramatic moments that genuinely had me on the edge of my seat. Another hidden sleeper hit discovered in Spike’s vast filmography. This is turning out to be quite a rewarding journey.
