Joel on Film

Here is a misfire so bizarre in the ways it goes wrong that it’s almost easy to miss the film’s main problem: Clika, so named for its protagonist’s viral-sensation status, can’t even figure out whether its own intentions are good. The main pull here, which must have been enough for this pedestrian production to receive the relatively wide theatrical release it has gotten, is that singer-turned-internet star JayDee plays a singer who becomes an internet star, before turning toward a life of drugs and crime. The challenge for the actor, as well as for its trio of screenwriters (including director Michael Greene, Sean McBride and Jimmy Humilde—the last of these a music executive and, presumably, the supervisor of the film’s soundtrack), is to convince us that Chito, the young up-and-comer in question, is worthy of our sympathy.

Perhaps this filmmaking team simply isn’t up to that challenge. Chito is a frustrating, frequently maddening character, passive by way of the fledgling actor’s performance and only active by way of a tired and circular subplot involving some very bad men to whom Chito and his uncle Alfredo (Concrete, another hip-hop artist trying his hand at acting) owe some drug money. That subplot also surely provides the reason this movie wasn’t somehow buried by its distributors, because it gives us some recognizable actors (namely, Eric Roberts and the late Peter Greene) as a couple of means-business enforcers on each side of the law.

It is especially disappointing that the film ultimately puts all of its chips on this half of the story, because it’s pure formula without a single distinguishing or especially redeeming aspect. Since the movie is only about 75 minutes long (not including the end credits), the filmmakers rush through the entire process of meaningful development that might have helped us to care about its various relationships enough for us to be involved when they’re put in danger. As such, there’s a note of sweetness in the romance that develops between Chito and Candy (Laura Lopez), a churchgoing girl drawn to his comparatively dangerous new lifestyle.

It is quickly undone, though, by the terminally earnest treatment of this entire scenario, narrated in expressionless monotone by Chito that only matches his blank stare and noncommittal body language throughout. We’re not entirely sold by the fact that Candy, who at least has a bubbly personality (if not much of a specifically alluring one), would be drawn to this man for much more than broadly materialistic reasons. Indeed, their relationship is the source of more tired drama after his debauchery leads him to visit several strip clubs and flirt with other women, not to mention spending nearly as much money as he makes selling cannabis around town in the dozens or hundreds of pounds.

At first, the gamble is to help his mother Mari (Nana Ponceleon) and younger brother Chuy (Josh Benitez), who’s in medical school, after the bank forecloses on their house. Eventually, it just becomes about Chito’s rise through the ranks of the music and drug-dealing businesses (including another recognizable face in Percy “Master P” Miller, appearing in a glorified cameo as a music executive) and swift fall in the face of his world crashing in around him. All throughout, the man’s stoicism clearly just comes down to JayDee’s imprecision as an actor.

Does Clika, then, actually mean well? It would be easier to answer that question if anything else about this production—which features stale, clean photography, a wishy-washy sound design, a notable lack of much in the way of original music to give us a sense of Chito’s talent, and simply a lot of profanity and attitude to stand in for personality and theme—was even remotely convincing.

Rating: * (out of ****)