A group of friends living in a poor and rough neighborhood ends up in trouble after a fight where one of them must pay a gang member money that he doesn’t have. So now, the group of friends must try to get hold of the money, and that means they have to do something illegal, which will cause them more problems. Will their bad luck soon turn around, or are they doomed?
This type of movie took me back to my youth. I wasn’t a criminal, but the neighborhood I grew up in was pretty rough. It wasn’t like the ghetto or anything like that, but the kinds of personalities you meet in Sun and Concrete are something I can relate to. You really had to stand up for yourself, or else the wolves would eat you alive! And as you can see, I survived, and I guess you’re happy about that, right?
The white Dennis the Menace in the group is the type of person I had in my group when I grew up. You know, the guy who has a good heart, but he stirs up trouble every time he gets a chance because his mouth opens up before his brain gets the chance to think. He’s impulsive, and he put a big smile on my face because he reminded me so much of some friends I grew up with. They caused a lot of problems with their pea-sized brains.
So the group of four we follow are best friends, and the main character in the movie gets in trouble because of a gang member beats him up. But the main character knows another gang, and they beat up the gang member that beat him up. They also steal some money from the gang member who beat up the main character, and now he wants the money that was stolen from him back from the main character. Are you following me? So it goes from there, and the group of four friends never catches a break. And that’s what I love about the movie.
The acting and the feeling of friendship are present, and something is going on the whole time. The movie never takes a break, and it also offers drama because the group of four lives with pretty bad people. The main character can’t even trust his big brother. He’s so naive, and he doesn’t have a spine. Out of the four, only one of them has a spine, and that is Dennis the Menace. The rest of them are spineless, especially the main character and another one who lives with an alcoholic father.
This is a movie that offers that one wild night feeling over several days. What surprised me the most was the humor that is almost always present, even in some of the more tense moments. It also offers the feeling of hopelessness, especially with the boy who lives with his alcoholic father and Dennis the Menace, who lives with a loser of a violent brother. When you spend some time with these characters in their apartments, you wish they were dead so that the boys could get a chance in life instead of wasting their time being afraid and angry.
I highly recommend Sun and Concrete if you like a fast-paced plot with good actors who create natural chemistry on the screen.