''Wassup Rockers'' is a 2005

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

film directed by Larry Clark.

Plot

''Wassup Rockers'' is about a group of

Guatemalan American Guatemalan Americans ( es, guatemalteco-americanos, links=no, or ) are Americans of full or partial Guatemalan descent. The Guatemalan American population at the 2010 Census was 1,044,209. Guatemalans are the sixth largest Hispanic group in the ...

and

Salvadoran American Salvadoran Americans ( or ) are Americans of full or partial Salvadoran descent. As of 2010, there are 2,195,477 Salvadoran Americans in the United States, the fourth-largest Hispanic community by nation of ancestry.South Los Angeles South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of downtown. It is "defined on Los Angeles city maps as a ...

who, instead of conforming to the hip hop culture of their gang-infested neighborhood, wear tight pants, listen to punk rock, and ride skateboards. Avoiding the violence of their dangerous home turf is an everyday challenge. The climax of the film occurs out on a skate-ride around Beverly Hills, California. Racial tension fumes the air of Beverly Hills as the pack of skaters effortlessly manages to coincidentally run into trouble.

Janice Dickinson Janice Doreen Dickinson (born February 16, 1955)As per Dickinson in NNDB aJanice Dickinson profilegives February 15, 1955, noting, "Although Dickinson has maintained in several interviews and her autobiography ''No Lifeguard on Duty'' that she ...

makes an appearance in the film as a rich alcoholic divorcee and former

soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...

actress whose Spanish-speaking maid helps Los Rockers. Fashion designer Jeremy Scott appears as a photographer.

Cast

* Jonathan Velasquez as Jonathan * Francisco Pedrasa as Kiko * Milton Velasquez as Milton * Usualdo Panameno as Porky * Eddie Velasquez as Eddie * Luis Rojas-Salgado as Louie * Carlos Velasco as Carlos * Iris Zelaya as Iris * Ashley Maldonado as Rosalia * Laura Cellner as Jade * Jessica Steinbaum as Nikki * Jeremy Scott as Andre

Critical response

The film currently holds a 37% "rotten" score on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

based on 52 reviews, with the consensus reading "As usual with Clark's films, the fixation on kids is rather creepy, plus the plot eventually runs off the rails into camp." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a score of 56 based on 23 critics, indicating mixed or average reviews. Film critic Roger Ebert gave ''Wassup Rockers'' a "thumbs up" rating on the television show '' Ebert & Roeper''. In contrast, his co-host,

Richard Roeper Richard E. Roeper (born October 17, 1959) is an American columnist and film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times''. He co-hosted the television series '' At the Movies'' with Roger Ebert from 2000 to 2008, serving as the late Gene Siskel's success ...

, gave the movie a "thumbs (way) down", emphasizing Larry Clark's apparent fascination with shirtless, adolescent males. Roeper argued, "When a colleague told me I was about to see a new film from Larry Clark, the director of ''Bully'' and ''Kids'', I said, 'I wonder how many scenes will pass before we get shirtless teenage boys?' That's one of Clark's rather disturbing obsessions." Ebert ultimately gave the film 3 out of 4 stars on his website.

References

External links

* * Films directed by Larry Clark Punk films Skateboarding films 2005 comedy-drama films 2005 films American comedy-drama films 2005 comedy films 2005 drama films 2000s American films {{2000s-comedy-drama-film-stub

Plot

Cast

Critical response

See also

References

External links