CB4

CB4 is a profoundly confused movie, combining rap music with a satire of the world of rap. Working both sides of the street, it gets caught in traffic. The film stars Chris Rock and Phil Hartman from Saturday Night Live, but it doesn't have SNL's smarts -- and worse, it doesn't have any sense of what's funny. On a structural level, it's incompetently written and directed. Read full review

With only momentary grandmaster flashes of brainless fun, too much of CB4 belongs in the hip-hopper. [12 Mar 1993, p.8D]

The title CB4 stands for Cell Block 4, but it may as well mean crash and burn, because that's what happens to this sputtering satire of modern rap music and Black hip-hop culture. Read full review

By any sensible standard, and from any ethnic perspective, this is juvenile trash of the lowest order. Never rising above its own crotch-obsessed level of would-be satire, it fails to examine the social issues that give rap music its aggressive vitality, and completely misses every opportunity for intelligent comedy that lies neglected beneath the surface of its imbecilic, gutter-minded excuse for a plot. [12 Mar 1993, p.3]