Charm City Kings

8/30/2022

Charm City Kings evokes such films as Boyz n’ the Hood, A Bronx Tale, and Torque. I know; one of those things isn’t like the others. The filmmakers, however, put the motorcycle fetish to good use, infusing it with imagery that’s almost religious in order to reveal its real-world impracticality. Mouse (Jahi Di'Allo Winston) is a bright 14-year-old boy with a natural affinity for and encyclopedic knowledge of animals that make him a natural-born veterinarian — if he lives long enough to become one. His late older brother Stro (Tyquan Ford), whom Mouse idolized, has become the patron saint of Mouse's adoration of bikes; whenever he speaks about them, Mouse is overwhelmed with a kind of ecstatic, frantic fervor. Meanwhile, gangbanger Blax (Meek Mill) and detective Rivers (Will Catlett