LEPRECHAUN IN THE HOOD (2000) Only in America There's some silly, absurd corner of my heart which holds an unreasonable tolerance for the Leprechaun movies. It's mostly because they started as a wildly misguided attempt at serious horror, and over the course of the next three sequels evolved into an increasingly bizarre and imaginative and yes, occasionally quite funny riff on Freddy Krueger. By the time they got to the third sequel, they'd set it in outer space, given the titular leprechaun a lightsaber and the ability to turn people into giant arachnids, and...I can't really defend the fact that I liked that movie. This is the fourth sequel. Somehow it makes sense, given where this series was going - a mischievous Irish folk character, made into a Freddy Krueger-style mad slasher with apparently unlimited powers, in the ghet-to (among very non-Irish people) when 'hood movies seemed to be at their most prolific...well, at the tail end of the trend anyway. He's always spoken in rhyme, but now he's hanging out with rappers and summoning up "zombie fly girls". Behold, America's melting pot. Wow. Rappers. I make no secret that I absolutely can't stand rap, that two seconds of it is enough to make me claw at my ears, that it's a perfect illustration of everything that's totally fucking retarded about teenagers. But I've always given it this much benefit of the doubt: maybe, just maybe, there's a respectable, thoughtful, meticulously crafted rap underground that despises the idiot-chow garbage that gets onto the radio and that's produced for better reasons than bling. Certainly, anyone who knew as much about hard rock and metal as I do about rap wouldn't likely come away with a positive impression of what they've heard. So while I have to be honest about my instinctive revulsion, I concede that I'm largely ignorant of the style, and further, the culture. Which makes a movie like Leprechaun In The Hood that much more baffling for me. Which parts are starkly straight portrayals of hip-hop culture, which parts satire, which parts falling lock-step into the self-glorification rap is known for? Hell if I can tell. But I think this is telling: the centerpiece of the leprechaun's treasure this time around is a magic flute that completely destroys all critical faculties in the people who hear its toot. Rappers use the flute to achieve some semblance of stardom, inviting speculation as to whether any other route to success could have been possible. Like the ganja passed from Ice-T to the Leprechaun in one scene, the flute seems to subdue the better judgment that would normally make audiences move on to something else. Is this what accounts for rap's popularity? I'd like to think so, but surely not every rap fan is puffing on a joint every time they crank up the latest phat beats. Lep 'n' Tha Hood (also the title of a song which the Leprechaun raps in the closing credits) starts in the 70's, with Ice-T as Mack Daddy, a 70's style pimp (with 70's style pimp music) with a huge-afro and some "Colt .54" who busts into some fool's crib and awakens the Leprechaun, which kills his friends (while rhyming). Then he manages to turn the Leprechaun back into stone and keeps him as a statue for twenty or so years. Modern day: he now runs a rap label which sells gangsta-themed wares exclusively; the positive-message raps of Postmaster P. (Anthony Montgomery, who went on to get a regular role on the latest Star Trek spinoff, ensuring the doom of his career) are mocked and jeered. Ice-T does his best not to look embarrassed, not entirely succeeding but he's still the closest thing to a center of gravity this movie has, what with all those instances of the word "motherfuckers", which was surely spelled in the script "muthafuckaz". Pissed about the jeering, Postmaster P. breaks into Mack Daddy's office, accidentally reawakens the Leprechaun and rues the day. Is it good? Don't be silly. It simply is what it is, and lets any fool know from miles away whether he's game or not. You don't see a movie like this expecting a scary time or a thought-provoking illustration of...anything. Leprechauns and gangsta rappers. God bless America. Coolio has a two-second, dialogue-free cameo which probably bears the bulk of the responsibility for this attracting enough attention to warrant making another Lep 'n' Tha Hood movie three years later. Mind-boggling, but at least that time the best rapper they could find was Sticky Fingaz. BACK TO THE L's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE