This is kind of how I imagine the idea for this movie came about… some guys were at a house party. In one room, the TV was playing The Warriors. In another room, you had 8 Mile. So they were walking around watching both movies and talking, and they were like “You know what would be awesome? If we could somehow combine these two movies. But that’s not cool enough. You know what both these movies are missing? Dance Dance Revolution!” The FP, which stands for Frazier Park, takes place in a town where gangs rule, particularly two who are trying to with The FP as their turf. JTRO (Jason Trost) and his big brother, BTRO (Brandon Barrera), are at The FP to have a Beat Beat dance battle against L Dubba E (Lee Valmassy), and ref’d by KCDC (Art Hsu). But when it turns to Omega Gangsta mode, BTRO can’t handle it… and dies. Skip ahead a year, and JTRO wants nothing to do with The FP until KCDC talks him into coming back to help restore The FP back to its glory days since L Dubba E has taken over and controlled the alcohol flow… which means bums aren’t getting drunk… which means they aren’t feeding the ducks… “And what’s a f*cking town with no ducks?!” Anyway… of course JTRO begrudgingly agrees and must train to get some street cred so he can face off once and for all against L Dubba E. Oh, and there’s a who love interest thing, too.

I’ve seen a lot of weird movies in my time, including some bizarre Japanese stuff. But this ranks up there with the most baffling. Basically you have a bunch of white guys (and one Asian) who are speaking in the whackest gangsta slang the whole time, and then instead of violence, you have Dance Dance Revolution battles (though they couldn’t get the rights to the name, so they had to change it). Toss in some melodrama, and then have them all take it as hyper-seriously as possible. This is basically a 2-joke movie: 1) the language vs. skin color  and  2) the ridiculousness of what’s going on vs. how insanely serious it’s being taken. This was originally a short film, and you can tell. Eventually the joke just runs dry. There are some occasional good jokes at that point (most of them coming from KCDC who has a couple funny running jokes). But mostly you have to be IN LOVE with the concept from the start or else you’re in for a long watch (even for such a short movie).

Essentially, this is just a Troma movie with a better director and better actors. So if you know what I just said, you know what you’d be getting yourself into. I laughed at the ridiculousness early on. And I laughed a little more at some of the occasional fresh jokes later. It was too weird a movie to ever really be bored with, but I certainly got to a point where I was like “OK… let’s move it along now.” And let’s not forget the “crude” factor. There’s some nudity and/or sexual things in here seemingly just to be there. There are at least a couple moments where a woman’s top is just coming off, so she just takes it off and stands around topless for the rest of the scene in the background. And there are at least two blowjob jokes in the third act (one during the–no pun intended–climax, and another that the movie actually ends with).

Overall, despite the totally stupidity and ridiculousness of the premise, there were some honestly funny moments that made me laugh out loud, or at least smile from time to time. But on the whole, it felt like a joke that just lasted a little too long. I also think it could have been made better had there been a little more Edgar Wright-esque style to it, because really… it’s not that interesting watching somebody else play Dance Dance Revolution, no matter how many times you show their feet or go back up to the screen. In fact, the DDR moments were probably the least interesting in the whole movie. I’d say that if any of this movie sounds like it could be fun to you, check it out. But if you pass… you’ll miss on a few pretty funny moments, but you’ll probably be OK with that.

♥♥1/2