'ATL': A great opening song, then boredom
By BOB LONGINO
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
(http://www.palmbeachpost.com/movies/content/shared/movies/reviews/A/atl/ajc.html)
"ATL," the roller-skating and life-in-Atlanta-with-a-rap-beat movie dreamed up by talented local music legend Dallas Austin and TLC's Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, is full of Atlanta sites, Atlanta extras, Atlanta sounds and the Atlanta vibe.
So let's cut to the chase. I'm in complete accord with what AJC critic Sonia Murray, a longtime chronicler of the ATL music scene, said about the movie right after last week's early press screening: "It's not embarrassing."
The movie's not a lot of other things, too.
"ATL" is not interesting. Nor compelling. Nor lively. Nor always comprehensible. Nor is it worth remembering beyond the moment you toss your popcorn tub into the trash bin before the exit.
There are a few laugh-out-loud, intentionally comedic moments, heavy doses of melodrama and passable acting (the performances from the leads — rappers Tip "T.I." Harris and OutKast's Antwan "Big Boi" Patton — improve as the film progresses).
But"ATL" is slow. Painfully so. The script is so muddled it can take more than a half-hour to figure out what the heck the thing is about.
Apparently "ATL" is intended to be about four guys in their final days of high school. They're wondering how to make it in the world. They roller-skate for fun and are supposed to be of championship quality (funny thing is, they never practice).
Some characters reach for the privileges and money of Buckhead, some fall prey to the make-money-fast drug trade and some just never venture beyond their community (one guy brags, "I've not ever been outside 285 and I'm proud of it"). Many characters hang out at a skating rink called Cascade, where kids can forget their troubles.
At this rink, T.I.'s character says, he got into his first fistfight and landed his first kiss.
Trouble is, for a movie about roller-skating, there's actually precious little of it going on onscreen. The movie builds to a "skate wars" contest that, oddly, never materializes.
The idea of an urban coming-of-age film is a good one and much needed, especially in view of the vanilla world of films like "She's the Man" and "Failure to Launch" that Hollywood eagerly favors.
At the same time, one wonders why Memphis can birth an Oscar winner like "Hustle & Flow," with inspiring performances and a swift, solid script, while Atlanta can only muster a lesser entity like "ATL," a movie with a great opening song (Ludacris' hefty "Georgia") followed by a full 100 minutes-plus of near boredom.
Part of the problem is director Chris Robinson, an infinite talent when it comes to music videos for artists like Jay-Z and Alicia Keys. His feature directorial debut has bright spots — a shot of Big Boi getting out of an expensive black car arcs and turns with professional bravado. But whole scenes are allowed to linger longer than they should, clarity falters, and most of the scenes at Cascade appear more claustrophobic than freewheeling.
So much of "ATL" is inert that Tasha Smith, who plays the fleeting character Miss Gail, the boisterous mother of shopaholic twins, easily steals the movie.
When one of her daughters, complaining that they have to exit the family station wagon through the back, snipes, "When you going to get the door fixed?" Miss Gail fires back, "When you get a job!" She's instantly funny, vibrant and real.
Too bad she's not in the movie for very long.
The rest of the film is just too much ATL. In other words, it's like being stuck at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport for hours. With nothing to do but sit and yawn.