Film / Belly (1998)

"Live by myself, die by myself."

I sold my soul to the devil, the price was cheap.
It was cold on this level, it was twice as deep.
It's 2 o' clock, I'm just about to hit the streets.
Until I knock off this rock, I don't get to eat.
Sometimes, it's like that's the only reason why I hustle:
to step on toes, strong-arm, and show a little muscle.
Ain't no real dough, that's why a nigga feels so frustrated.
I hate it, seeing bitch niggas that made it.
And I'm robbin' niggas just as broke as myself.
Fuckin' with Queens ain't too good for a nigga's health.
Where's the wealth? It ain't in New York.
I gots to make my rounds and do whatever for the dollar.

— Opening poem of Tommy "Buns" Brown

Belly is an 1998 American crime drama film written and directed by music video director Hype Williams, in both his first and only role directing a feature film to date. Filmed in New York City, it stars rappers DMX and Nas, the latter of whom wrote the story with Williams and Anthony Bodden. Taral Hicks, Method Man, and R&B singer T-Boz also star.

The film begins in early 1999, with two young New York street criminals, Tommy "Buns" Brown (DMX) and Sincere (Nas), violently robbing a club along with their associates in crime. Although they're ruthless gangsters, Buns and Sincere both show signs of refinement and ambition. Sincere has become disillusioned with the street life, become enlightened to the plight of urban poor with the teachings of The Reverend, and seeks a virtuous life outside of crime. Buns, living in a high-class loft with girlfriend Keisha (Taral Hicks), only really values money and possessions and never seems satisfied with anything.

The next day, Tommy overhears a news report of a new strain of heroin and sees it as a business opportunity. Sincere initially resists, but Tommy still convinces him to go along with the scheme. From there, the two experience highs and lows in their plans and their lives, and must ultimately come to grips with the destructive path their lives are headed down.

Belly opened to controversy upon release, with its unapologetic look at street life being criticized as a demeaning depiction of black people, and critics further taking issue with the film's screenplay and performances. However, its highly stylized, noir-like visual design and cinematography received praise, and the film as a whole has gained a cult following.

A Direct to Video sequel, Belly 2: Millionaire Boyz Club, was released in 2006.

Not to be confused with the Alternative Rock band of the same name.

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Belly contains examples of:

• Action Prologue: The film starts off with Buns, Sincere, and Mark robbing a night club and killing security along with the proprietors.
• Age-Gap Romance: Buns is secretly hooking up with a 16 year old teenager named Kionna and receiving oral sex from her occasionally behind Kiesha's back.
• Asshole Victim: Shameek gets a lot more fight than he can handle from Kiesha.
• A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Shameek (while posing as Ike Love) appears comedic and goofy when he meets up with Rico, but is later shown to be able to handle himself real well in the streets. Until he underestimates Keisha.
• Becoming the Mask: When a shady government agency forces Buns to infiltrate The Minister's organization to assassinate him, Buns really begins taking the reverend's teachings to heart, and chooses not to kill him.
• Big Applesauce: Besides a few scenes in Omaha, Atlanta and Jamaica, the movie takes place in New York City. Considering the subject matter, it overlaps more into The Big Rotten Apple.
• Bulletproof Vest: Shameek appears to be wearing one after getting shot close range by a bartender/cashier and escaping the scene after his confrontation with Rico.
  • Shorty mentions that he wears one for protection as he sells drugs.
• Butt-Monkey: Black.
• Blown Across the Room: Shameek is shot close range in the chest by a shotgun wielding bartender and knocked through the entrance/exit unto the sidewalk. He survives.
• Boom, Headshot!: How Keisha kills Shameek after the latter assaults her.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Chiquita, she only appears in the movie twice for no more than 2 minutes of screen time but ends up taking out Lennox after the hit squad she accompanied ends up getting killed.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Lennox goes up against an entire hit squad who invaded his mansion. He manages to kill every single one of them easily while never receiving as much as a graze wound. He is killed by a Femme Fatale shorty after.
• Cool House: Buns has one with a black/white theme. Lennox has an even bigger and better mansion which could easily be mistaken for a royal palace.
• Create Your Own Villain: Tommy forces Black to strip naked after Knowledge accuses him of stealing, which Sincere instigates. This nearly gets Sincere killed by Black in revenge.
• Damsel out of Distress: Kiesha at the end.
• Deal with the Devil: During the opening scene, Buns as a young boy is shown selling his soul to the Devil.
• Didn't See That Coming: Chiquita uses the element of surprise by jumping from the 2nd floor and landing on Lennox and killing him while he was not aware of her presence in his house.
• Dies Wide Open: Wise as he lays dead slumped against a table in a restaurant.
• Dirty Cop: Knowledge (a criminal) has a police officer for a girlfriend.
• Dissonant Serenity: Buns, after La Kid shoots Wise in the face over a dumb argument he made worse.
• Dull Surprise: Somehow, filling a movie with rappers and singers instead of actors led to a lot of bad performances. Of particular note is Nas, who wears the same blank expression and speaks in the same flat tone in every single scene. Even after being shot.
• Evil Is Cool: Subverted. Nobody except Tionne and Sincere really seems too worried about the morality of being robbers and drug dealers, and the beginning robbery and the drug-dealing montage are both shot stylistically, as if to emphasize the coolness... But by the end, the only characters not dead or in jail are the ones willing to leave the street life behind.
• Faceless Goons: Mr. Pelpa's team of hitmen.
• Foreshadowing: Buns mentions that before Lennox was a big time drug kingpin, he was a hitman in Kingston, Jamaica during the 1970s who slit the throats of his targets. This is the same way he meets his own demise.
• Generic Ethnic Crime Gang: Buns, Sincere, Mark, Black, Knowledge, Wise and La Kid form one of these. Also, Big Head Rico and his boys at the hair shop. Lennox is a Jamaican version, as well as the Jamaican man he has Buns kill.
• Guns Akimbo: Shameek dual wields two nickle-plated Desert Eagle handguns during a shootout in a strip club.
• Hood Film: Widely considered to be one of the best movies of the genre and had a huge cult following a few years after being released.
• Idiot Ball: Knowledge calling Tommy's house from jail and talking recklessly to Keisha, even though he KNOWS the house is probably under investigation (and says as much over the phone!) this gets Keisha arrested and sends Tommy on the run, when if he had waited Tommy might have had the money.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Mr. Pelpa's hit squad. Despite using laser sights, they are unable to land a single hit on Lennox, even when he's in the middle of the room (laying on the floor).
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Shameek and Lennox both show shades of this while intoxicated. Shameek is tipsy off alcohol and drugged shortly by Rico, but manages to kill Rico and a few of his guys while visually impaired in a crowded strip club without wounding a bystander as well as shooting at a police car while barely looking at it. Later Lennox is shown smoking cannabis and consuming alcohol to the point where he is clearly inebriated, yet he manages to kill atleast a dozen of armed hitmen who invaded his home and seems the only shots he missed was the ones he purposely fired in the air as a way to taunt his enemies and his "victory" against them.
• Intelligible Unintelligible: As spoken by Lennox. A broken mixture of English/Jamaican patois, with the occasional Foreign Cuss Word, his dialogue forces the viewer to listen for keywords and rely on context and guesswork to follow what he says. Garbled and incoherent enough that at times, even Tommy has to ask Ox to repeat himself. This trope is taken even further during a scene in Jamaica, where all of the characters' dialogue is subtitled.
• Laser Sight: Mr. Pelpa's hit squad have these attached to their weapons when they raid Lennox's mansion in an effort to kill him. It doesn't help them succeed.
• Large Ham: Method Man as Shameek, especially playing the role of Ike Love.

"Ike Love:" Is THIS Him? Is this the illest nigga in Nebraska? Is you 'bout it' bout it, fool?

• Malcolm Xerox: The Reverend, who despite his appearance actually turns out to be a bit more of an MLK expy.
• Mexican Stand Off: Played with. Tionne is confronted by Father Sha (Shameek) and a few other goons after the latter breaks into her home in an effort to question Sincere about Buns' whereabouts. Tionne draws her weapon followed by Shameek and crew doing the same. Despite having superior numbers and firepower, Shameek leaves the premises and Tionne is left alone unharmed as neither side fired a shot.
• Narrator: Sincere
• Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: Averted. Chiquita kills Lennox by slitting his throat even though she was only armed with a knife while Lennox and the crew of hitmen she accompanied had assault rifles.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Sosa, who is Lennox's biggest rival is assassinated by Buns disguised as a homeless man after dropping his guard to hand him some cash.
• Oh, Crap!: Big Head Rico, when a drugged Ike Love name-drops Knowledge, the drug dealer he snitched on.
  • The bug eyed look on Lennox's face when he sees the hit squad invading his home on surveillance cameras.
• One-Man Army: Lennox, when Mr. Pelpa sends a hit squad to his home. He effectively manages to take them all out without getting shot once, even when they were equipped with laser sights. Despite this, he gets taken out by Chiquita.
• One-Word Title
• Only in It for the Money: Sincere has lost his love for the street life, but has a family to take care of and won't pass on a good opportunity. Tommy sells his soul as a child during the opening credits.
• Only Sane Man: Sincere. He decides to leave the criminal underworld behind before he ends up in jail or possibly dead like the majority of his crew.
• P.O.V. Cam: The camera briefly switches to this view during Shameek's shootout with Rico's homeboys and Lennox's shootout with a hit squad sent by Mr. Pelpa.
• Red Shirt Army: a group of hitmen break into the mansion of a drug kingpin but get wiped out easily without wounding him at all.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Buns and Sincere, respectively.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Shameek, for Knowledge.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Big Head Rico tries to flee the club when he realizes Ike Love is working for Knowledge. He doesn't get far. Also Sincere and Tionne, after Shameek and his thugs break into and terrorize Tionne and Black shoots Sin.
  • After the police and federal agents raid an apartment, Mark jumps from the 2nd floor bedroom window to avoid getting arrested.
• Shout-Out: Lennox's Final Stand is basically the Jamaican version of Tony Montana's.
• Slashed Throat: Lennox is killed in this fashion by a female assassin after a huge gun battle.
• The '90s: The film was released on November 4, 1998 but takes place in 1999 starting in February.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Knowledge. Good at getting money, better at sowing mayhem. He's the reason Tommy spazzes out on Black, he calls Keisha from jail knowing that the phone is trapped (he even says it OUT LOUD TO KEISHA!), sends Shameek after Tionne and Keisha to shake out Buns or Sin (which gets Father Sha killed by an angry Keisha).
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Sincere meets up with a 12 year old kid named Shorty who sells drugs, smokes weed, wears a bulletproof vest, and carries a weapon. Shorty also mentions that he shot someone on the roof of the Rochdale housing projects and might be wanted by the police as a result.
• Villainous BSoD: Tommy, on the run from the law and desperate to raise money to pay back Lennox, ends up in Atlanta selling weed with Wise and La Kid, two young kids he was trying to mentor from young dumb thugs into educated gangsters like himself. One night at dinner, he drunkenly allows/instigates a stupid argument between the two kids to escalate from bad jokes to drawn guns, and La Kid shoots Wise straight in the head and walks off. Tommy, drunk off his ass and regretful about not stopping the conflict, just sits there and smokes a blunt, waiting for the cops to arrest him.

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