Chapter & Verse: A Harlem Story (2015/Anchor Bay DVD)

Picture: C Sound: C Extras: D Film: C+

After spending 8 years behind bars, Lance Ingram (Daniel Beaty) returns home to Harlem to start over a new life, but things aren't easy for a man on parole and with a record, and things don't change in the ghetto. Unable to find a job, he is forced to work as a food deliveryman. It is on his delivery route he meets Ms. Maddy (Loretta Devine), a spirited grandmother living with her grandson Ty (Khadim Diop). And while Ty is a good kid, he gets involved with the local gang. Lance will have to decide if he can help Ty and keep him from walking down the same path as he once did in Jamal Joseph's Chapter & Verse: A Harlem Story (2015).

This leaves Ty a 'gangsta wannabe' and he reminds Lance of his younger days in some ways. Lance wants to do right by Ms. Maddy and tries to be a big brother to Ty and keep him from becoming a gangster, but sometimes tough love isn't enough and he has to use some of his old skills from his hood days to help get Ty out of the game.

This is a tale told too often, Harlem kids becoming gangsters, thinking they can get away with anything because they are kids. Growing up in the hood it is hard to avoid to be connected to crime when crime is turned into a life style, but gangsters can not see beyond their own two hands that they are destroying their own future. It is the age old tale of the old man wanting to turn over a new leaf, but he is force to return to some of his old life when he wants to help the young boy from sharing the same fate as him. This version offers little new.

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is digitally shot, a little weak and has some motion blur, while the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix has flaws and is not too good. There are no extras.

- Ricky Chiang