15, 107 mins
George Gittoes’s Rampage is not a particularly good documentary. It’s an undisciplined sprawl that sorely needs an edit; the camerawork makes your stomach heave. And perhaps I’m not sufficiently attuned to the nuances of gangsta rap but I’m not convinced that the subjects of the film — rapping brothers brought
up in the crossfire of a bullet-strafed Miami suburb — are the “prophets and poets” we’re told they are. But the film raises some fascinating ethical and philosophical questions about documentary cinema: what truth can it hope to capture when the very act of making a film alters the reality it intends to record? Gittoes, an Australian, became fascinated with the Lovett brothers — Elliot, Marcus, Alton and Denzell — their ghetto war zone and their savage rhymes. But his camera attracted attention: gang tensions simmered, threats were issued. Then one night a 16-year-old assassin shot Marcus dead.
Obviously racked with guilt at the possibility that his documentary might have contributed to the tragedy, Gittoes himself becomes a character in the film. He captures the family’s grief with an intimacy that borders on intrusion. But he also wants to atone, to protect the remaining youngsters from a similar fate.
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Their journey out of the ghetto — to New York to try to secure a contract for 14-year-old Denzell, then to Australia — is financed by the film-maker. It’s almost as if Gittoes wants to rewrite the Lovett family history. The film ceases even to pretend to be an impartial documentary, but the anguish is genuine.
WENDY IDE