The appealing coming of age comedy Dope turns a well-worn plot into an engaging movie by juxtaposing stereotypes. The conventional plot device is the Regular Guy Finds $100,000 of Drug Money In His Backpack. The regular guy, however, is not just an African-American teen who lives in a nightmarish hood (Shameik Moore), but ALSO a nerdish brainiac who aspires to vault from Inglewood to Harvard. Writer-director Rick Famuyiwa grew up in Inglewood, so the story and the characters ring true.
The cast is uniformly good. Zoe Kravitz, who has been stuck in secondary roles in the Divergent movies and Mad Max: Fury Road, plays the mouth-watering love interest here, and she dominates the movie. Gotta see more of her. Veteran supporting actor Roger Guenveur Smith is especially good as the kid’s would-be gateway to the Ivy League; Smith’s 76 screen credits include American Gangster and a whole bunch of Spike Lee films.
It may not be life-transforming, but Dope is a smart, original and entertaining little movie.