Bodied

Audacious, outrageous, and sure to be divisive as hell, Bodied skewers outrage culture, white privilege, and just about every damn thing to do with appropriation and representation, while delivering some of the most bombastically funny scenes in years and Kahn's by now trademark kinetic camerawork. The way Larson's script slowly peels back the layers of our leads builds up to the unbelievably shocking climax perfectly.

A fast-paced take on racism, cultural appropriation, outrage culture and political correctness that tries its best to offend just about everyone in equal measure. Or: what if Dear White People had a whole lot of battle rap?

Pretty entertaining. It obviously falls short when it comes to depth, which is only natural considering how many different themes they tried to approach... It's comedy first, everything else later. With that in mind, it's a lot of fun.

At first I enjoyed the rap battles but thought some of it was a little too on the nose, like they had to explain rap to uh, white people? But then it didn't take long for the point of the PC culture satire to kick in. Sometimes I agreed, sometimes they didn't go deep enough, but for the most part it's a pretty level headed look at it. Derives its humour from shit people would find offensive but quite funny. Conflicted about the ending; emotional high but afterwards a cliché final scene.

As a fan of battle rap *readers immediately boo* sorry, sorry, but I appreciate the legitimate battle quality, the cameos, and how it critiques itself constantly in service of themes. Bodied's plot is parallel to The Hustler but weaker and could've use more influence from that classic. The story understates the true moral, you can say anything but there are consequences to what you say, and often kneecaps arguments by incorporating political cartoon-esq caricatures.

My expectations were a bit too high. I was ecstatic to see another film like 8 Mile, although unbeknownst to me, it was directed by the guy that made Detention (2011), and the odd tone and humor came with it. The characters are a mixed bag here. Behn is by far the best, actually a great character. But there’s multiple high strung females and obnoxiously overly macho males to counter him. Overall if it’s of interest you’ll have fun, I just wish it were a bit more serious in places.

rvw. i wish they went more realistic. like didnt play a score, no useless battle animations, no unreal freestyles (shoulda said they just had bars for each other like irl). and i wish they hit home important correctness better. instead they acted like PC is right. but no, battle rap isn't racist because it's racial. they're not actually racist and dont think each other to be. and adam isn't a bad person pretending they don't understand. they actually just dont understand lmao it's just words

few will be surprised to read that kahn followed up DETENTION with his SCOTT PILGRIM (or an anti-LA LA LAND by way of WHIPLASH), but did anyone expect such a politically incendiary eminem-produced sports musical? it's a dizzyingly dense, mean, obnoxious mess of a film (and not all its satirical targets are fairly drawn), but i doubt the clusterfuck that is america's contemporary political discourse can be explored any other way, and what emerges is the need for debate, context and empathy.

Weak attempt of the last quarter to tie into a typical narrative brought my score quite a bit. The build up is one of the most hilarious things I've seen.

As somebody who grew up watching a lot of battle rap and was familiar with the cameos, I had a better time watching this than I probably should have. It's an amateurish, sometimes fun, attack on PC culture that's severely lacking in its actual storytelling ability. Worth it for the battles alone.

"Stop rhyming, you little shit!"

Constantly entertaining though uneven. The Michael Bay version of 8 Miles.

So bad