`Poetic Justice' Filled With Mistakes

MOVIE REVIEW

X 1/2 "Poetic Justice," with Janet Jackson, Tupac Shakur. Directed and written by John Singleton. Aurora, Everett Mall, Grand Cinemas Alderwood, Newmark, Renton Village, Seatac North, Totem Lake, Varsity, Valley drive-in. "R" - Restricted because of language, sex scene.

So many F-words, so many profane epithets, so many squabbles and sexist insults . . . so little dramatic impact.

"Poetic Justice" is a character study with no real people in it, a coming-of-age tale with little sense of its characters maturing, a movie-star vehicle afflicted with an opaque music-video star.

Coming off the deservedly acclaimed "Boyz N the Hood," John Singleton has chosen for his sophomore effort a story that answers some of the criticisms directed toward that male-dominated film.

Attempting to write larger roles for African-American actresses, he's created a sincere but stillborn feminist drama that never engages you the way his "Boyz" did. Indeed, the liveliest performance is by Tupac Shakur as a confused but charismatic young postal worker who pursues the heroine.

The movie's comic high point is a family-reunion picnic at which Shakur and his cronies are accepted as "cousins" by a crowd they've never seen before. For a few minutes, this spontaneous detour promises to take Singleton away from his solemn impulses.

Perhaps if the lead actress had been more experienced than Janet Jackson, "Poetic Justice" would have been at least been watchable. Cast as a South Central L.A. hairdresser who has lost her mother (who committed suicide) and boyfriend (blown away in her arms), Jackson rarely suggests a young woman in pain.

She recites a lot of Maya Angelou poetry on the soundtrack, but her claims that "they still can't touch my inner mystery" ring false. She spends too much screen time blowing bubbles and worrying about Shakur's dirty fingernails. There is no mystery here, only insipidity.

Even with a dynamite actress in the role, Singleton would still have been saddled with his own suffocatingly shapeless screenplay. Has he "gone Hollywood" by doubling his "Boyz" budget and casting a well-known music star instead of a gifted unknown?

Not really. The budget is still peanuts by major-studio standards, and he clearly thought Jackson was the best choice for the role.

"Poetic Justice" is simply the kind of ambitious mistake that talented young directors sometimes need to get out of their systems. Spike Lee did it with "School Daze"; many would argue that Steven Soderbergh did it with "Kafka." Singleton is just 25, and "Boyz N the Hood" was no accident.