Cut

With Cut, Malik Salaam brings vibes of the late, great John Singleton mixed with urban Shakespeare in this cautionary tale of the agony and the ecstasy, the euphoria and the dystopia that awaits all who tumble down the rabbit hole of drug addiction.

Ebone Camp is Bunny, a young girl looking to forge her own path in the big city of Atlanta after fleeing a stifling family environment of oppression and addiction in her rural home. But whilst trying to find a balance between work and study, Bunny hits a roadblock when she struggles to keep up the payments for her tuition. Whilst working as a server, she happens into the company of Renee (Simone Johns), an exotic dancer who impresses upon Bunny that she has the looks to make serious cash.

Desperate to remain metropolitan and not have tuck tail and head back to the sticks, Bunny dances and making a good living. However, during a party, Bunny catches the eye of a music producer named Edward (Jawara Mills). He’s a fast-talking, street-smart cat who steals Bunny’s heart. Soon, the pair is deeply involved and smooth sailing. Then we add drugs into the mix. Edward scores his blow from a dealer named Squirrel (Frederick Taylor), and eventually Bunny, like her man, starts craving that nose candy.

“Bunny…must survive the night and put up one last fight to break free…”

Feeling as though she is losing herself to the drugs and a man who rides easy on her earnings, Bunny pushes to break free of the hold the drugs and Edward have on her. Her friend Renee is there to support her, but in the wake of one last blast and a tragic overdose, Bunny soon finds herself in a deadly spiral which leads to manipulation, murder, and mutilation. Bunny, with the help of Renee, must survive the night and put up one last fight to break free and get clean. Still, as the evening goes further, each of our characters descends into their own private purgatories, facing their own demons which rip and crawl for possession of their souls. The party turns into a nightmare when a hot dose is taken, and the accident soon drifts into the realm of homicide.

Conjuring memories of Boyz n the Hood, Poetic Justice, and Higher Learning, Salaam’s tight direction and fantastically written characters take us into the dazzling and dangerous arms of addiction and the dark society that gravitates around it. Ebone Camp is a strong center with great chemistry alongside Simone Johns, along with a sincere yet tragic turn by Chris Jeffreys as Chester.

Cut is shot real slick and cut with a scalpel into a fierce and chic misadventure, with some devilishly clever transitional sequences, where catastrophe is a teacher and success a survivor’s reward as Bunny began her expedition looking to escape a sadness created by a life destroyed by compulsion only to learn that sometimes, the only way to escape those old ghosts in our pasts, is to turn around, and face them head on.

For more information, visit the Cut official website.