Gimme the Loot
Director: Adam Leon
Writer: Adam Leon
Cast: Ty Hickson, Tashiana Washington, Zoë Lescaze, Joshua Rivera
Part of: Viennale

Plot:
Malcolm (Ty Hickson) and Sofia (Tashiana Washington) are a spraying team. As their graffitis get continuously vandalized by a rival group, they hatch a plan with which to get more respect: they want to tag the Mets’ home run apple. But to get access to the stadium, they need to get 500 bucks to pay off the security guy. So they try everything to get their hands on that money which leads them from one problem to the next.

Gimme the Loot was a completely sweet film, much sweeter than I expected. I thought there would be a bit more social criticism and a little less romcom to it. But I have to say that I didn’t mind that one bit.

Adam Leon has created to very wonderful characters in Sofia and Malcolm and I just loved to follow them around. As the film ended, I really didn’t want to leave them just yet. That’s also because both Ty Hickson and Tashiana Washington really are great in the roles and their friendship feels completely tangible.

Adam Leon really did a bang-up job with the direction. Every gesture, every little beat was just perfectly placed and timed and the character’s interaction made complete sense, especially with Sofia and Malcolm, but also with everybody else.

I also liked the soundtrack. It’s not really the kind of music that I would listen to at home, but it fit the movie perfectly.

And the story was really nice. Funny, light-hearted and, I can only repeat myself, absolutely sweet. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t bad things that happen – the plot was very well developed, as things continue to go wrong for the two of them – but somehow, the movie retains a lightness and an optimism all through it that makes those things not seem that hard.

Summarising: Extremely nice.