An aspiring rapper pins all his hopes on a make-or-break meeting with a famous producer at a “secret” party that everybody knows about in “Boxcutter,” an amiable street-life dramedy set on the not-so-mean streets of Toronto.
It’s a tale with an amusing cross-section of expats from “de islands” of the Caribbean and with a built-in ticking clock — a mad scramble to “get my album together” to show the big guy who’ll deliver that big break, maybe right in the middle of that hip hop “event/party.”
But about that “mad scramble.” A big part of its charm is this entire single-day story unfolds in CCPT — Caribbean Canadian People’s Time. For a fellow whose hopes hang on making this one thing happen at that one particular time, our boxcutter is “a bit too leisurely,” as Prince Rogers Nelson might have put it.
Ashton James is Jerome, “Rome” to his friends, 20ish and tall enough to make the lie “If I didn’t hurt my ACL, I would’ve gone pro” plausible. But his new dream is “my album,” a collection of rap tracks that he’s hustled together, arm-twisting and low-balling this aspiring producer for “beats” and that one for leftover studio time.
A Black Canadian rapper with Caribbean roots? “Look at Drake, The Wkend!” Dreams CAN come true!
His roomie/bestie/aspiring manager Sid (Vipushan Vani) is determined to get him on the bill for a college tour in which rappers pay to be heard. Rome is cocky and above that pay-to-play hustle.
“My s–t is CINEMATIC!”
All he has to hear is that rapper/producer Richie Hill is showing up at this unpublicized event to think it’s all happening, and right now. He’ll bribe his way into the party, show his stuff and change the trajectory of his life.
But Rome has never performed in front of people. He keeps his raps to himself and on recordings. With every other person he meets on the street dreaming/bragging about a similar break (and a lot of them know about the party), how realistic is he and is he committed enough to overcome the awkwardness and make it happen?
“Boxcutter” is about what happens when the laptop he has his tunes on is stolen and he’s clocked in the robbery. He will duck out of his shipping-and-receiving “boxcutter” job and spend the day trying to reassemble his beats and rhymes from assorted others — the producer who provided some beats, others who have this track or that flash drive or that recording they’re holding onto until he pays them for the studio time he cadged.
He ambles through this day with the photographer/sister/dreamer of one would-be impressario. Jenya (Zoe Lewis) regards him as a brother and is the first to see their goals are similar. But she’s gotten a commission for a piece of professional photo-collage art for a construction site. She figures she’s already making her dream come true.
Rome? He can’t be bothered to create a social media “brand” and put his name and samples of his work “out there” to be discovered. She could help him with Tik Tok, “Insta” and all that.
They banter and bicker over the long, slow day that takes them from this stoner to that professional recording engineer, with Rome sure to get fired and uncertain of ever getting his music back together, of meeting the producer and impressing or dazzling him when he does.
Will Rome ever pick up the pace enough to make his appointment with destiny? Will Sid or Jenya or any of the other people he’s connected with stick with him through his day of trials? Did the landlord stage the robbery to kick him and Sid out of their apartment?
The film’s musical, slangy island patois is so thick that you might need subtitles to make out much of what is said other than “fam” and “bro,” Rome’s two favorite words. Everybody speaks it and everybody has some sort of hip hop delusion they’re hustling about himself. Jenya has to fend off one hilariously pushy Lothario (Marlon Palmmer) on the public transit she and Rome take back and forth across the city in search of his tracks and her mural commission. Brother man gives her the full court press, right in front of Rome, and drops “Bob Ross” into the conversation when he learns she’s an artist.
They know about Bob Ross in Canada? Man.
Director Reza Dhaya leans into that frustration-creating (maybe just for uptight white people) pacing, the ways Rome seems so uncertain of his boasting that he never picks up the pace to get it together for that one shot he spends the whole movie bragging about.
If our hero slow-walks any slower he and the filmmakers risk losing our investment in his story.
But the performances have an offhanded charm and street reality that sells this. And there are worse ways to spend your movie-going time that taking a walk on the not-so-wild side through Toronto’s colorful neighborhoods with the dreamers who long to escape them.
Rating: unrated, violence, profanity
Cast: Ashton James, Zoe Lewis, Shomari Downer, Marlon Palmer,
Viphusan Vani, Charlie Ebbs and Rich Kidd.
Credits: Directed by Reza Dhaya, scripted by Chris Cromie. A Film Movement release.
Running time: 1:36
