Netflix Pick – The Get Down
Netflix is really on a roll this summer. Not only does this make my job of finding great recommendations easier but it is really making up for the lack of great films this summer movie season isn’t delivering. The latest incredible Netflix Original boasts a phenomenal cast and is delivered by the always creative, although often over the top, Baz Luhrmann. The Get Down follows a group of kids in the rough 1977 Bronx. Their lives are all changed by a couple very different branches of the musical revolution going on at that tumultuous time in New York City.
The Get Down is a fictional story. It plays out very biographical. The setting, time, and many of the ancillary players are very real however. Ezekiel/Zeke/Books (Justice Smith) along with his friends Ra-Ra (Skylan Brooks), Boo-Boo (Tremaine Brown Jr.), and Dizzee (Jaden Smith) are neighborhood nobodies trying to live their lives like most young high school aged boys would. They are into art and hide their intelligence for fear of losing face, namely Zeke. Zeke has a typical TV will-they-won’t-they relationship with a friend of his friend’s sister, Mylene (Herizen F. Guardiola).
The four friends idolize the tags done by an infamous neighborhood character known only as Shaolin Fantastic (Dope’s Shameik Moore). There is a large feeling of never meet your heroes when it comes to Shaolin until Zeke runs into him one day. The two battle over a rare record they both need for completely different purposes. Their different purpose brings Zeke’s crew of four to a crew of five when Shaolin sees the young smart wordsmith as the missing link a great portrayal of Grandmaster Flash (Mamoudou Athie) sent him after.
The plot comes down to Zeke and Mylene leaning on friendship and music to better their lives and get them out of their poor, crime riddled, crumbling neighborhood. Their paths are different but cross again and again. The fun musical plot is complicated (in the best way) by gangsters, drug pushers, hustlers, bootleggers, politics, and real history.
The Bronx in the late 70s was a neighborhood that is literally burning to the ground as the citizens are forced to simply deal with it. The half black half hispanic neighborhood is reflected perfectly in its core cast. None of the core cast are household names but based on their performances in this show, granted a lot of Luhrmann’s work is over the top intentionally, indicate that at least a few of them will be.
Justice Smith carries the entire series, a young actor with only a handful of credits on his resume is mesmerizing in the weight and depth of his performance. The character, and the actor, have a lot of heavy lifting to do over the course of the series. He remains grounded and rises to every occasion.
Equally as impressive is Herizen F. Guardiola. The Get Down is literally the second project she has acted in. Her character shoulders a third of the movie and she handles it with ease. Even more impressively is that Guardiola performed all the musical numbers her character had in the show.
Shameik Moore first got on my, and many other’s radar, with 2015’s incredible movie, Dope. He plays a character with such an over the top, cartoony, introduction and then has some of the grittiest work to do on screen that only an actor of such talents could carry it.
There isn’t time to go through every member of the cast, that really is without a weak link, but some honorable mentions need to be made. Jimmy Smits, Giancarlo Esposito, Yahya Abdul-Mateen, and Kevin Corrigan have a wide range of roles and responsibilities but rise to every occasion. Jaden Smith, yes the same poor kid who constantly takes a beating in the press, does a great job in his supportive role. Between Pursuit of Happyness, The Day The Earth Stood Still, and especially The Karate Kid have proven that this strange kid has a solid amount of his father’s talent. The Get Down reminds those who know and educates those who doubt. The story also builds a lot for Dizzee to do in the second part (coming 2017).
The device of recapping the previous episode, or giving he lowdown on the current episode is clever and plays into the story perfectly. The series starts with a much more modern version of hip-hop being performed by Books as an adult. His songs are the recaps without them feeling heavy handed or unnatural.
You can’t talk about The Get Down without talking about music. In 1977 Disco was at its peak. The short lived, and overall horrible, trend is shown in its full hilarious glory throughout the series. An actual dance off happens, and the main character Mylene wants to be a disco singer, and much of the failures, and later successes of the core crew are dependent on a disco club. More exciting for viewers who are more into modern music is seeing the birth of Hip-Hop. Grandmaster Flash is a character in the film and the mentor to Shaolin Fantastic as a DJ. A DJ needs a wordsmith, Zeke. Wordsmith is essentially the rapper. The show’s original synopsis makes mention of the birth of Punk music being prevalent as well. Part 1 ends with only a mere mention of Punk and The Ramones, so the second block of episodes will likely play into this more.
I could gush about how much fun this show is for a few more pages but instead of reading that much you really should be watching it. Knowing you’re stepping into the mind of Baz Luhrmann excuses the cheesier bits of the show and some of the hamfisted dialogue. It isn’t exactly a musical, but at times it’s exactly a musical. The strange mix of cartoony characters, gritty truths, real history, fictional fun, gangsters, kids, corruption, and wonder blend perfectly into a wholly positive experience that keeps you coming back for more.
