Director F. Gary Gray – The Shooter Series: Volume
Two (2010/Vivendi/Genius DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: B- Main Program: B-
F. Gary
Gray is a good visual director and key director of Music Videos in the Hip
Hop/Rap genre, but his transition to doing feature films has not been as
good. I have noted this in several
reviews I have done of his work. Now, Director F. Gary Gray – The Shooter Series:
Volume Two is a nearly hour-long program gives us a good look at what has
been a successful career. The
documentary looks at all of his work, but much of his Music Video output is
here and here is what is included:
Jay-Z – Show Me What You Got
Outkast –
Ms. Jackson
R. Kelly –
If I Could Turn Back The Hands Of Time
Babyface
& Stevie Wonder – How Come, How Long
Whitney
Houston – I Believe In You & Me
TLC – Diggin’ On You
Dr. Dre –
Keep Their Heads Ringin’
TLC – Waterfalls
Dr. Dre
& Ice Cube – Natural Born Killaz
Coolio – Fantastic Voyage
Queen
Latifah – Black Hand Side
Outkast –
Southernplaylisticadillacmuzik
Cypress Hill – I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That
Cypress
Hill – When The Ship Goes Down
Ice Cube
– It Was A Good Day
Mary J.
Blige – You Don’t Have To Worry
Fans will
note the absence of clips like Jon B.’s Pretty
Girl, Barry White’s Come On, the Brandy/Tamia
Missing You and Will Smith’s La Fiesta.
For
artists who wanted more than just Hype Williams’ world of techno-fisheye lens
shots in the Kubrick vein turned to Gray for something more complex and
diverse, which is why his run directing Hip Hop Videos is as significant as any
director in the genre. He thinks outside
of doing just another Video and that made for some interesting work that is
often the peak of his work. Then there
are his feature films.
I have
criticized most of them as not as effective as they could be. For the record, I would rate his films as
follows: Law Abiding Citizen
(overdone), Be Cool (a disaster for
which it is good he took a break), The
Italian Job (has its moments for a remake), A Man Apart (not so good), The
Negotiator (disappointment), Friday
(amusing at best) and Set It Off
(his best film to date). But he is a
very prepared, personable, technically adept filmmaker, so why the lag between
short form Videos and feature length narratives?
After
watching, I realize that it is Gray burdened with too much of the details of a
given film that holds him back from doing his best work. He has great taste on what to ask from his
actors and knows what he wants his action sequences and big set pieces to look
like, so they are not a problem. The
problem is exceeding all that and it is hurting his career and his peak
abilities as a true directorial artist on his features. The five-year break between bomb Be Cool and mixed success of Law Abiding Citizen (which he did his
best on considering he took over from another director only two weeks before
shooting!) may have helped him a bit, but his next film will be as important as
any and may just determine his viability as a feature film director in the
future. I want to see him succeed,
especially after seeing him behind-the-scenes here. Hope things take off. Until then, this is a solid installment in
what should be a long-running series if the quality remains this high.
The anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 image offers various aspect ratios, but the main interview
footage is new HD shot work and we also get our share of film and analog video
throughout. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
mix is just fine for a documentary like this whose sound ranges from the
mixdown of multi-channel film soundtracks to monophonic archive audio. Extras include those Videos if you want to
count them as such, Giving Back
mini-featurette, an illustrated booklet inside the DVD case, eight trailers to
seven of Gray’s feature films and a making of featurette on Law Abiding Citizen, reviewed elsewhere
on this site.
- Nicholas Sheffo