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Review

Like many before her, Princess Diaries star Anne Hathaway attempts to shed her "good girl" image by taking on a role that is a radical departure from any of her previous work. So radical in fact, that within the first ten minutes of the film she is topless in a car and going down on her man. Hathaway, along with the equally undressed Bijou Phillips in the role of her best friend, play privileged rich girls from Pacific Palisades who are fascinated by rap music and gang culture. In search of kicks, the girls and their posse of misguided rapper-wannabes go to East LA gang territory to score drugs. When the deal goes bad and they manage to escape with their lives, it sends them into a grave downward spiral.

With no regard for the obvious signs of danger, Allison (Hathaway) and her friend Em (Phillips) return to East L.A. in an attempt to join the very gang that they bought their drugs from. And while Allison is left relatively unharmed, Emily may not so lucky. Indeed, Allison manages to avoid every opportunity for disaster through out, while those close to her are hurt many times over. She develops a relationship with one of the gang members (Rodríguez) and tensions escalate, culminating in the fairly predictable and boring shoot out.

All things considered, the film doesn’t properly convey the message it force feeds the viewer. While the heart is in the right place, the filmmakers seemed too hesitant to truly demonstrate the consequences of the characters actions. There is no doubt that there are millions of kids who act like this and while the premise of these types of kids actually tangling with real-life gang members is interesting enough, the lack of depth prevents a rousing success. The rich-kid wannabes seem slightly clichéd, with their dated, generic hip hop clothing and lame slang. But, it is very possible that this was the director’s intentions, however heavy-handed the effort. The gang members are convincing if a bit clichéd themselves and Hathaway (and Phillips too) is sexy as hell, actually excelling as a confused and troubled teen. Unfortunately this asset alone isn’t enough to carry the film.