Ride

The Hudlin brothers have done much to bring African-American film into the mainstream by making it as mediocre as standard Hollywood fare. Ride, their latest production, has aspirations but settles for being an amiable teen comedy like the Hudlins' House Party movies. The film is a mild satire of the hip-hop business, full of insider cameos and broad stereotypes -- a womanizing record label executive, an imperious video director, and a bunch of Harlem-based teenage rappers who (the script assures us) have little talent. (It's hard to tell, since there's surprisingly little music in the film.) There's also a green assistant director, Leta (Melissa De Sousa), an apparent stand-in for Ride writer/ director Millicent Shelton, who must chaperone the rappers from New York to Miami on a rickety bus.

Helping Leta is the earnest, community do-gooder Poppa (Malik Yoba), and their tentative romance is juggled with many other soap-operatic subplots. Yet the filmmakers can't be bothered to follow through with any of these except as set-ups for jokes and insults. Even the least demanding teen viewers may feel cheated by the absence of the sex and violence implied by Ride's R rating; except for the constant profanity, the kids might as well be spending 90 minutes chuckling at sit-coms on the WB. At the Showcase Cinemas Seekonk 9-10.

-- Gary Susman