I've been following the cinematic career of Marcellus Cox long enough that I entered the world of Jamarcus Rose (Duane Ervin), the key figure in Cox's 23-minute dramatic short Jamarcus Rose & Da 5 Bullet Holes, with certain expectations.
Cox is an unflinching filmmaker. Cox demands of himself richly human storytelling that is also uncompromising with its truthfulness. Such is the case with this story, an all too familiar one but one also at times brimming with hope and possibility.
Jamarcus is a slightly wayward young man, a high school kid shaped damn near equally by trauma and talent. He lives with his grandmother in one of those neighborhoods you always hear about where good kids get caught up in bad circumstances with no way out.
Jamarcus has a way out. Baseball. He's got a fastball that could be his not so fast way out of here, though his grandmother, lovingly played by Ruthie Austin, can see the ripples of those darker influences and is willing to do anything to keep Jamarcus on the straight and narrow.
She signs the reluctant youth up for a Big Brother, Jasper (Stephen Cofield Jr.), hoping that a mentor, especially a Black male mentor, will help him stay focused on creating his good life.
Jamarcus Rose & Da 5 Bullet Holes is inspired by a true story, though truthfully it's likely inspired by a myriad of true stories.
Good kids go astray.
Promising athletes succumb to those darker influences.
Sometimes, maybe most of the time, life just plain ain't fair.
As a storyteller, Marcellus Cox doesn't always tell us the stories we want to hear. Cox tells us the stories we need to hear. I'm not sure Cox has ever set his eyes upon the Hallmark Channel, because there's not a greeting card narrative to be found within his cinematic endeavors.
There's just a whole lot of truth-telling.
Duane Ervin hits a homer as Jamarcus, balancing his street edge with promising vulnerability and traumatized soul. He's a young man you can't help but root for, and the fact that you root for him gives an anxious razor-sharp edge to everything that unfolds here.
Similarly, Stephen Cofield Jr. is everything we want him to be. Heck, he's everything we'd want a Big Brother to be with natural transparency, comfortable interpersonal skills, and enough experience with hope that you can't help but want it to rub off.
Indeed, Marcellus Cox wants us to feel the possibilities here because that draws us in even deeper.
I'm not telling you the rest of the film, though Jamarcus Rose & Da 5 Bullet Holes is both original storytelling and the Marcellus Cox we've come to know and love and expect.
Jamarcus Rose & Da 5 Bullet Holes may not always be the film we want it to be, but I'm damn near sure it's the film we need it to be.
Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic
