Light It Up . Tucson Weekly . 11-22-99

Light It Up

DIRECTED BY: Craig Bolotin

REVIEWED: 11-22-99

Not unintentionally, Light It Up comes across as an urban update to 1985's The Breakfast Club, complete with a band of disenfranchised students from a dilapidated school in Queens (with Judd Nelson as their mentor, no less). But in the lost innocence of the end of the century, the punishment these kids face isn't for skipping class or "getting smart" -- they've shot a cop and taken him hostage, and they have demands. The heavy-handed message is that kids shouldn't have to wage war to get a decent education. Duh. But writer/director Craig Bolotin tries too hard to make a film with impact, and delivers instead a slick production (with design by Blade Runner's Lawrence Paull and photographic direction by Steven Soderbergh and Spike Lee veteran DP Elliot Davis) that preaches without inspiring. Starring Usher Raymond, Fredro Starr (Clockers) and Forest Whitaker, among many other recognizable faces.

--Mari Wadsworth

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