Film Review: Hookers In Revolt (2006)

SYNOPSIS:

A group of hookers revolt against their greedy pimps.

REVIEW:

OK…I fully believe that my boss hates me now. Why? I haven’t a clue (Although I suppose I could be quicker with my submissions), but I don’t think I’m a bad employee. I think I get the job done pretty well if I do say so myself and I work cheap. But he definitely hates me and I have proof of it now. That proof is something called “Hookers In Revolt”.

I’m sure that most, if not all of you, have read Orwell’s “Animal Farm” right? Well, “Hookers In Revolt” is a sort of blaxploitation take on the esteemed novel in which the animals are replaced with hookers. It plays about the same way as the book does to a point, meaning that if you’re familiar with the book and you find yourself watching this dreck you will recognize the similarities pretty quickly. But the lofty ambitions the filmmakers have here don’t add up to much because they don’t have three key elements: 1/ A script.
2/ Actors (Who can actually act).
3/ Everything else I didn’t already mention above.

I could also add on important elements like a soundtrack (This film has a constant bass line running throughout that is not only annoying as f*ck but it also manages drowns out the dialogue most of the time). Some scenes that don’t take place in rooms with white walls might have helped as well. And seriously, if you wanna make a movie & you don’t have the money for a decent camera couldn’t you at least not use one that was last owned by Fred Flintstone? The film is a grainy, splotchy mess to look at.

I didn’t get to the plot though did I? Some hookers get tired of the pimps & dirty cops that are running the show and taking most of their hard earned money so they decide to gather their forces together and break free of the shackles that have chained them and run the show themselves. But they soon find that power corrupts & absolute power corrupts absolutely. Unfortunately the budget for this movie wasn’t big enough to show us the army of hookers that is seemingly involved so we get about seven of em’. There’s a hilarious scene reminiscent of “The Warriors” in which the hooker who has the idea to unionize in the first place, Delilah (Osas Ighodaro), convenes a meeting of “Ho’s” (Their word…not mine) to rally the troops. It is meant to pay homage to the scene in “The Warriors” in which Cyrus brought all of the gangs of NY together to consolidate their power and work as one unit. But that film had a budget slightly bigger than this one does & we see hundreds of young men gathered together. Here we see seven women but the background sounds as if there are hundreds of people standing in front of Delilah as she pontificates. The camera shakes whenever we see the seven onlookers to give the illusion that there are a lot more people watching.

In quick order Delilah is murdered by fellow hooker Cleopatra (Olivia Lopez) but nobody among the throng of seven in the audience seems to notice that Cleo did her in so along with her right hand ho Coco (Nefra Dabney), Cleo takes over the newly formed union and proceeds to protect the members of this newly formed group. But of course Cleo has ulterior motives & ends up being just as bad as the pimps & dirty cops that the group was formed to protect themselves against. Cleo has set up a secret partnership with officer Simmons (Director Sean Weathers) who agrees to keep her on top as long as he gets his share of the cash…and Cleo. Coco gets the idea to form a sort of dating service that will net the girls more money for less work which sounds great but Cleo realizes that this will eventually undermine the stranglehold she has on the girls so she has Simmons murder her leaving Cleo in charge. Almost immediately, she has the girls work longer hours for much less money. Over time the pimps are gone but instead of a strong union led by someone with their best interests in mind, the girls find themselves victimized by a far worse entity indeed and whatever freedoms they were originally promised turn out to be nothing but a pipe dream.

Now to be fair, “Hookers In Revolt” has a couple of things going for it. There is a decent amount of nudity in it although since it has that title it better have some friggin’ nekkid chicks in here somewhere. And I have to give some props to director Weathers for giving himself the best sex scene in the movie as well. I mean, he’s the director right? It also has some (Unintentionally I hope) hilarious dialogue as well but everything else about this movie is strictly bottom of the barrel. As a matter of fact there isn’t even a barrel bottom present here, if there was that would be a step up. The best part of this flick are the end credits which credit the “Animal Farm” character that each role is based on. Example: “Sean Weathers, Film: Gene Simmons, Book: Dog”. It’s a smart way of acknowledging the source material that the script was based on.

But it’s still a lousy ass movie. The idea of a blaxploitation “Animal Farm” actually has some merit to it but that doesn’t mean you can go at it if you don’t have the proper resources to make it halfway decent looking at least. I’ve said it before & I’ll say it again, just because you have a camcorder and some friends who wanna play “Let’s Make A Movie” doesn’t mean that you should go ahead and make one. That being said, there are some good ideas here and I get the feeling that director Weathers actually can make a good movie if he had some more cash to make one with. I’m gonna give a dog a bone here and toss “Hookers In Revolt” 1/2 a shroud for effort. For all that’s wrong with it (And there is plenty wrong with it), it had potential. Hopefully Weathers has built on this and cooked up some better movies since. I just hope that my boss gives them to somebody else to review, that’s all.

Hookers In Revolt  (2006)