Dope

Malcolm is a high school student in Inglewood, California, who dreams of being accepted to Harvard. He lives in a rough part of Los Angeles and balances applications, academic interviews and SAT preparation with his friends Jib and Diggy, with hip-hop and a shared geeky streak running through their days. An invitation to an underground party sets off a chain of events that pulls the three of them into trouble and pushes Malcolm to work out who he really is.

Rick Famuyiwa wrote and directed the film, which was produced by Forest Whitaker and Nina Yang Bongiovi. It is the fourth feature Famuyiwa directed, following The Wood, Brown Sugar and Our Family Wedding, and Shameik Moore leads the cast as Malcolm, alongside Zoë Kravitz as Nakia, A$AP Rocky as Dom, Kiersey Clemons as Diggy, Tony Revolori as Jib and Blake Anderson as Will Sherwood.

Released in June 2015, the film runs 103 minutes and is a comedy, crime and drama. Made for seven million dollars, it took in about eighteen million worldwide, a solid return on its budget. Audiences rate it 7.2 out of 10 on IMDb from roughly 92,000 votes and 7 out of 10 on TMDB from over 1,600 votes, while critics gave it 7.4 out of 10 across 161 reviews, a reception broadly in line with how viewers received it.