Rize (2004)
Average Rating: 7/10
Reviews Counted: 90
Fresh: 75 | Rotten: 15
The dances in Rize are electric even if the documentary doesn't go that deeply into the performers' lives.
Average Rating: 7.1/10
Critic Reviews: 31
Fresh: 27 | Rotten: 4
The dances in Rize are electric even if the documentary doesn't go that deeply into the performers' lives.
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Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 8,730
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Movie Info
Noted photographer David LaChapelle makes his feature directorial debut with this documentary on a new facet of street culture in South Central Los Angeles. In 1992, after long-simmering racial tensions in Los Angeles erupted in riots following the verdicts in the Rodney King trial, a man named Tommy Johnson sought to spread a new message in a new way to the city's African-Americans. Creating a character called Tommy the Clown, Johnson developed an act that combined hip-hop-flavored comedy and
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All Critics (100) | Top Critics (34) | Fresh (79) | Rotten (15) | DVD (11)
It's a well-known truth in the dance world that the body doesn't lie. As long as the characters in this film are dancing, we have little reason to doubt their sincerity. But once turned into talking heads, the dancers begin to sound like propagandists.
Top CriticA vivid portrait of art rising from deprivation and social hopelessness.
LaChapelle's powerful street-dance documentary Rize never lets us forget that its subjects are dancing in a war zone. But dance they do, in a kind of controlled frenzy, with music throbbing and limbs whirling and swaying and pulsing to the beat.
[LaChapelle's] not the world's best documentarian, but he saw something that needed chronicling. So he turned his camera on the krumpers and let them do the rest. Smart choice.
Clowning and krumping are urban art and art therapy in motion.
It's a feel-good film that actually makes you feel good.
Vibrant, in-your-face chronicle of an urban dance movement.
[F]or all its mis-steps, Rize gets by on enough jumping, pumping energy to fuel the national grid.
Dealing with life's darkness is what this type of dancing is all about.
An unusual movie whose energy lingers.
Recommended to fans, potential fans, and the curious; the main thing you can ask from a documentary is that it show you something new, and for me this one certainly did.
David LaChapelle's documentary is a spirited but less-than-insightful look at contemporary youth culture in south-central Los Angeles.
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Foreign Titles
- Rize - Uns hält nichts auf! (DE)
I really have to commend Tommy the Clown for what he did. I've seen him at a party once, but I wasn't too familiar with his movement back then. What he has done is bring hope to kids that had almost none. Without his guidance, a lot of the kids in this film would be in gangs, in jail, doing nothing productive at all, or possibly dead. That alone makes this a film that everyone should see. I wanted to give it a higher score, but I still have trouble taking Krumping, as a form of dance, seriously. Still, this is an excellent film.