My Review of "Beats"

I have to admit that I didn't even know that the movie Beats existed until I was watching a YouTube movie about Netflix movies that I should check out. Beats was on the list and it came out in 2019 with little promotion from Netflix. That's too bad because I really think this movie deserves more of a push.

The movie starts off with August, played by Khalil Everage, he's an amateur hip-hop beat producer. He's learning from his sister because she's basically his idol. While they're walking home his sister is giving him tips on how to get better when all of a sudden a lone gunman takes fire at them. The bullet had clipped him in the arm and killed his sister.

Fast forward a few months and we meet Romelo, played by Anthony Anderson. He's a high school security guard that doesn't really care for his job. We soon find out that he has the job because his wife had pulled some strings. Romelo used to be in the music business but something terrible had happened and he's been ostracized ever since.

The high school that Romelo works at so happens to be a school with very low student attendance. His wife wants to separate from him because of his lack of enthusiasm in life. He convinces her that he can do better so she gives him a task to get some of the students to come back to school to help out with their attendance record. Romelo agrees to get the students back.

One of the students on his list is August. He goes over to August's apartment and his mother is refusing to allow August to go to school. While Romelo talks to August's mother he notices the music August is making. He really digs August's music. In fact, he likes it so much that his music management bug starts to itch.

Romelo is relentless, he continues to go over to August's house to talk to August about music and soon realizes why August hasn't come to school. August may have much to worry about with Romelo as well because he's unaware of Romelo's shady past.

This movie was actually very interesting and captivating. We see Romelo transforming his life as the movie progresses. In some ways you see him start to become a good guy but in other ways he's not entirely what he seems. At the same time we see how much August has to deal with and he definitely suffers from a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder.

The city of Chicago also plays a minor character in this movie. They continually talk about some Chicago artists and how the streets of Chicago are really bad. All of the events in this story seem bleak but have a feeling that they are grounded in reality.

I was shocked how much I enjoyed watching this film. It really pulled me in as August continued to fight his PTSD to attempt to be a normal kid again. Watching Romelo try to redeem himself of his horrible past was also hard to watch but it's nice that they put it in there to make his character a little more complicated.

Overall, I did like this movie but I found that the ending was a little lazy. It seems to me that most Netflix movies always end in an open ended way in order to get a sequel. I really don't like that with these movies because I'm almost expecting it now. I would have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. It's very watchable and I would be able to recommend this movie to other but I probably won't watch the movie again.