Rap Movie Review – Paper Soldiers

Year of Release: 2002

Production Companies: Roc-a-Fella Films/Universal Pictures

When looking at some stars of today, or of any era, sometimes it’s funny to seek some of that star’s earlier work to see how far that person has gone in his/her career. In this case, when seeing Kevin Hart, the man has come a long way, whether it’s watching the Ride Along films from the 2010s, or even some of his earlier work, like 2004’s Soul Plane, which may be something I should touch on someday. But in this case, we’re going a bit earlier than Soul Plane, when he played the lead role in the 2002 “rapsploitation” flick, Paper Soldiers.

Make no mistake about it, I have covered films like this before. With this being a Roc-a-Fella film, I should probably compare this to the State Property films, especially the second film, considering it was directed by Damon Dash, add to the fact that Beanie Sigel was in this movie. When looking at the cast for this movie, it showed that it was definitely a product of the early-2000s. Hell, the first State Property came out the same year, and this was at a time when you would see a lot of these low-budget movies with rappers in the cast, and this dated as far back as the late-1990s. Though I tell myself a lot that I should cover a much earlier example like 1993’s Who’s The Man, but that’s a topic for another day.

This film’s plot wasn’t really anything special. It mainly revolved around Shawn, played by Kevin Hart, who had just gotten out of jail and is trying to find his way. He has a girlfriend and a son, as well as some friends (and with this type of film, one of them is white guy trying to act street; man, how of its time it was). However, his mother died and he is broke, so he needed to find a way to get by. He decides to turn to burglary. Hey, it was a bit of a change from pushing drugs and such.

What was funny (and I mean funny as in odd) was that whenever there was a character introduced, there were bits when it would go into freeze-frame and the character’s name would appear on screen. Hell, it was even done with the character of Stu, played Beanie Sigel, as he was shown in the artwork/poster and was billed. He was a pretty popular rapper at the time, so it was understandable (though I will get to another billing, just wait).

The thing about this film was that these characters were shown as wannabes, the type of people who are getting into petty crimes but they aren’t exactly threatening. Beanie Sigel actually played a somewhat threatening criminal, but some of that went out the window when being confronted by cops and mocking them when being surrounded. Of course, he got a little violent at times, but maybe it was done to balance his character a bit.

The problem with this film was that it was kind of all over the place in tone. Don’t get me wrong, some bits were a bit funny. It did have some moments. Some of it was even from the rappers themselves trying to act. One funny moment in particular was when Shawn and Stu tried to rob a rapper’s home and found gold records on the wall, only to find that they’re not exactly made of gold, but just vinyl records that were spray-painted gold (duh!). But then you had some sequences that got a little dark in some areas, which brings to light that this film was originally supposed to be a drama and that many of the serious scenes were shot but not added in. Because really, a certain scene was pretty hard to watch.

It made me wonder about the casting for this film. Capone and N.O.R.E. (or Noreaga; I’ll just refer to him as N.O.R.E.) were in this film and had a few scenes. Derrick “Capone” Lee, as in the comedian, played a pretty big role and one part had his character and Capone’s (as in the rapper, whose real name is Kiam Holley) character in the same scene, except the rapper Capone didn’t have any lines in that one. Someone must have really wanted them in the same scene for some reason. Stacey Dash was in this movie but really had nothing to do with the plot. It seemed that a lot of guys lusted after her, but nobody ever got with her. I actually wonder if her character was left in the script for something more but then got scrapped.

Which now brings me to Jay-Z being top-billed for some reason, when he was only in it for less than a minute and had no lines at all, and on top of that, played himself. At least when Memphis Bleek and Damon Dash appeared, they had some lines but it was really more of a cameo for those guys, as well as Jay-Z. Let’s not forget that Michael Rappaport was in this movie for a glorified cameo at best.

I can’t say that this movie didn’t have any redeeming qualities because there were some scenes that were actually funny, whether it was the intent or just the fact that some of the actors were having some fun in their roles. Plus, I’ll have to give Damon Dash some points for some of the direction. Beanie definitely had that aura of a hulking, menacing type, while Hart had that small man-child type of feel that it gave a decent contrast to both characters. This movie was definitely one of those types that back in the early-2000s, you were likely to pass this up at a rental store or maybe come across it and think “huh?” It was like that for me when coming across B-movies, but for some reason I have a thing about those types of films.

But really, this movie did kind of have some issues in some areas that I really wonder if there was a cut that had more of the balance between the comedy and drama or at least the edit of just the serious scenes. Which makes me wonder how Kevin Hart would have done in something like that nearly two decades ago. Yes, he has done drama, but that was in The Upside, which came out in 2019 (well, originally in some areas in 2017), but still, it’s hard to imagine. This movie dragged a bit, but like I said, it did have its moments. I almost wonder if I should give the first State Property another chance as I felt that I was too hard on it in my review from it a while back.

2.5/5

By the way, Nathan Rabin wrote a good article about this movie back in 2013. Check it out.