Tha Fi-80 Eight
This
film is a sequel to my other film Da Four
Oh! 1. For those of you who haven’t
read my treatment for the first film, Mark Walhberg
plays Peter ‘Fife’ Fifer, a former Marine and veteran of the first Gulf War
turned Harlem social worker. He works at
a youth center with the street address 401 (which they refer to as ‘da four oh’) where he teaches breakdancing
to inner city youths with the help of his girlfriend Soul Marquez (played by
Eva Mendes).
We meet up with
Fife in this one and he’s still hard at work helping at-risk inner city youths
realize their potential. His girlfriend,
Soul, is now pregnant with their first child.
In the opening scene we see Fife at a fund-raiser, supervising his troop
of dancers putting on a show for the neighbourhood and everybody getting really
into it. His troop includes Backslap
(played by Usher), TruTube (played by Nick Cannon),
Hi-Rize (played by Shaquil
O’Neal), and Runt (played by Paul Dano).
At the end of
the fund-raiser they pour their winning out onto a table at da
four oh and count them with with glee and realize
they’ve got enough to put down a payment for an abandoned building up the
street which has the street address 588 but they refer to it as ‘tha fi-eighty’.
Backslap slaps
himself on the back and strikes a pose exclaiming “I’m in business!” and
Fife corrects his arrogance saying “There’s no ‘I’ in ‘co-op’.” We then get them all going down to city hall
and registering the deed for the co-op restaurant they all are starting
together.
We then get a
montage to hip-hop music while they renovate and Soul watches stroking her
pregnant belly and the troop study business textbooks and Fife does hardcore
exercises like chin-ups on the scaffolding showing off his army tattoos. The place ends up looking great and Fife and
his troop are really enthusiastic about running their own business. The troop does little breakdancing
routines while serving the customers and they love it.
One night they
close up and Fife goes home with Soul and they have some heart-to-heart moments
about entering parenthood together. Soul
tells Fife that he’s reshaped so many troubled lives that it’s about time he
created one from scratch. The two
snuggle and the next morning Fife shows up at tha fi-eighty to find his troop all distraught outside and the
whole building boarded up with a notice of re-zoning from City Hall. Hi-Rize gets
impatient and says “Fuck it, I’m going to work.” and starts ripping the
boards off the door to get inside but it seems like a bunch of cop cars were
just hiding and waiting in the alley and turns on their sirens and pull out and
arrest them all for trespassing and vandalism.
While in jail
some assholes start taunting the troop about how there’s no escape from tha hood and they were stupid to try playing tha Man’s game and playing business man. They all get into a rumble with the asshole
criminals and TruTube gets all worked up and snaps
one of the assholes’ neck and they then back off. Then the jail cell door opens and a bunch of
guards storm in followed by a calm and steely Ed Harris who tells them to get
the assholes to another cell and the guards escort everybody but our troop and
Ed Harris out of the cell to another cell somewhere.
Harris (who is playing a character also named Harris,
but with a different first name like ‘Frank’ or something) calmly stoles around
the room looking at the dead body on the ground and stroking his chin while
Fife stares at him intensely.
Harris asks TruTube “What does that look like to you?”
TruTube fires back “It
looks like some punk-ass who ran his mouth.”
Harris retorts “It
looks like 25 to life from where I’m standing.”
Fife
explodes at Harris letting us know that these two know each other “What’s
this about Harris?”
Harris replies “A
job. Your job.”
Fife “I quit
working for you a long time ago.”
Harris coldly “Nobody
quits.”
Backslap
interjects “Fife, were you in a gang or somethin’,
G?”
Fife “Worse than a gang, Backslap.”
Harris
takes out a dossier and hands it to Fife showing reconnaissance photos of Danny
Trejo and says “Something very precious of ours has fallen into this man’s
hands. You and your dance troop are
going to get it back.”
Fife
gives a flustered response “These guys are breakdancers,
not special ops!”
Harris says “When
I closed your restaurant, threw you in jail, and set you up for a murder rap
did you hear the word ‘please’ at any time?
That was me telling you, asshole.
None of this is negotiable.
Besides, if they can dance, they can fight. You’ve gone up against enough ex-Soviet ballerinas-turned
FSB assassins to know better so don’t bullshit me, Fife.”
Runt screams “You
bastard!” and takes a run at Harris and Harris takes Runt to the ground
with one deft kick to the nuts and says “Well, maybe not that one. Just
bring back nuke.”
We then get a
training montage where they all study combat in da
four oh. Ultimately they penetrate Danny
Trejo’s Colombian compound where he lives like a Sultan. He sits on a throne and has women fanning him
and feeding him while he watches men fight bears ‘n shit in a gladiator pit
below. The troop infiltrate by getting
jobs as breakdancing waiters serving and amusing
Trejo and all his associates in the arms and drugs trades.
One night Hi-Rize is doing backflips while
serving mohitos to Trejo and accidently spills a drop
on Trejo’s shoe. Trejo tells him that
he’s about to get a lot more entertainment value than just dancing out of him
and throws him in the gladiator pit and a tiger comes out. Hi-Rize actually
uses his special ops choke holds to beat the tiger which impresses Trejo. Trejo rewards Hi-Rize
with drugs and whores and begins to take him under his wing as his favourite
gladiator.
Backslap also
begins to fall in love with Pepita (played by Paz
Vega) one of Trejo’s chief administrators.
His loyalty seems to shift as his romance grows and he starts to like
living in the compound. At nights, Fife
and TruTube slip into ninja outfits and go looking
for the nuke until they figure out that it’s built right into the giant golden
bull in the main throne room. They send
Runt off to town to steal a truck to transport the golden bull and start
planning the big heist. Backslap keeps
trying to get them to take Pepita with them because
Trejo will kill her if they leave her, but Fife doubts her loyalty.
The night of
the heist comes and Runt drives the truck right through the front gates through
the lobby and up into the throne room while Fife, Backslap and TruTube cover him with machine guns and taking out the
guards with judo moves. TruTube, Runt, and Backslap try to load the bull into the
truck while Fife stands guard. Trejo
shows up with Hi-Rize and tells him to destroy Fife
and the two tumble into the gladiator pit.
While Fife and Hi-Rize duke it out, Trejo goes
over to the lever that releases the tigers into the pit to kill them both. Runt tries to intercept him but Trejo kicks
him in the nuts and throws him into the pit and releases the tigers.
Trejo pulls out
two uzis and his guards go after TruTube
and Backslap. A shootout ensues using
the golden bull and throne altar as cover.
TruTube gets wounded bad
and Backslap tries to tend to him. But
while Backslap is tending to TruTube, Trejo sneaks up
behind him and puts the gun to his head, but then Pepita
shows up behind Trejo and blows him away.
Fife is still
rolling around on the ground with Hi-Rize. A tiger eats Runt and starts coming towards
Fife and Hi-Rize.
Fife jumps out of the way and the tiger eats Hi-Rize
and Fife jumps on the tiger’s back to make it out of the pit. Fife, Backslap, TruTube,
and Pepita drive the car out of the compound and make
it down to the harbour, where an American military platoon quickly loads the
golden bull and escapes the heavy gunfire coming from Trejo’s militia.
They get back
to America and the military quickly usher the nuke away. Soul is waiting for Fife on the tarmac and
the two embrace. Harris walks over to
the bloody troop, congratulates them on a job well done, motions to Soul’s
pregnant belly and jokingly suggests that they name their kid after him to which Soul does a jumping 360 spinning hook kick and knocks
Harris out cold and then lands and her water breaks.
The next scene
is several weeks later at tha fi-eighty,
which is now back in business and the place is hopping. Fife and Soul play with their new baby named
Street Fifer. Backslap and TruTube are the breakdancing waiters and serve a burger to a customer who
asks them what they call this tasty burger, to which Backslap replies that it’s
called ‘the Runtburger’ after a good friend and that
his wife came up with the recipe and motions to the kitchen where we see Pepita wink at him flirtaciously. A journalist shows up telling them they’ve
been named business of the year and he wants to take their photo. Fife, Soul, Street, TruTube,
Backslap and Pepita all gather in front of the
restaurant for a group photo and the shot freezes, turns to black and white and
a rap song starts playing as the credits roll up.
If you liked this, check out some other related
shit:
My attempt at writing a Mark Wahlberg
movie.
Of all the films I’ve
watched in the past week, this one is the mediocrest.
And yes, this is the film
in which Eva Mendes gets a handjob on screen in the
opening scene.
Successful trilogizing complete!