Some films have the power to make you rethink your attitude. That's certainly true of Jason's Lyric. It was while watching this mishmash of a Freudian gangster movie that I suddenly found myself reconsidering Sugar Hill (Wesley Snipes' brooding gangster film). Like most critics, I gave Snipes movie a sound dissing for its half-baked existentialism that never got out of low gear. But it offered some memorable moments, and at least it had the guts to stick to its offbeat brand of loony sincerity. Jason's Lyric travels through some of the same turf, but Sugar Hill emerges as a masterpiece in comparison to this tired exercise in fratricidal angst.
The distinctive feature of Jason's Lyric is its use of the ghettos and open countryside of Houston as a location for a minor tale about two brothers whose lives are doomed to violent explosion. Jason (Allen Payne) is the straight-laced older brother who's, chosen to pursue a clean life as a wage slave for an appliance company. Bakeem Woodbine plays Josh, the younger sibling, who's opted for the gangbanger road. Despite their differences, the two men are emotionally locked together by the long-suppressed secret about which one of them accidentally killed their father (Forest Whitaker in a brief appearance that's almost too good for this movie).
Along for the ride is Jada Pinkett as Lyric, the nice girl whom Jason falls in love with. Unfortunately, the romantic side Of this movie is lifted, for the most part, from the weaker moments of Poetic Justice (another film that was better than many critics gave it credit for being). Add to this an ending that borrows heavily from the old James Cagney picture Public Enemy, and you've got a movie that groans under the weight of its own unfulfilled pretensions
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