"this film had one of the most realistic depictions of urban club life that i have seen on film"...yeah man..the club soundtrack was incredible...(loved that they pulled cymande into the mix)..so was the overall score by terence blanchard(especially the beginning of movie)...

.loved the actors and actresses spike chose...while i did like the movie, i did find the pacing a little slow and i can see why cat made the comment about the plot...there could have been more pressure on monty and i kept anticipating that something was gonna happen around the corner but nothing ever did...

...the city of ny was an integral part of the story though...when monty started his 'fuck you' rage about all the different types of people in ny, i thought of that scene in barbershop when eve's character said she was gonna break up w/ her man and he responded by saying she wasn't that cute anyway...and by that example i mean that sometimes when we know we can no longer have something or be w/ someone, we tend to amplify the faults and convince ourselves we really don't care for it/her/them/etc (i.e. quest's verse in 'you aint fly')...monty's rage was like that...he was ranting about the folks/things he hated in nyc but those are some of the things that make nyc, nyc...and it was his way of trying to convince himself that he wasn't gonna miss home in order to handle the time in prison better...but in the end, we see some of those same character's smiling at monty and i took that to mean while he may have bitched and complained, those are some of the things he really loved and would miss...

..and to love all those things, especially after having experiencing 9-11 (which spike emphasized w/ his images), you gotta be a true new yorker at heart...which would have made monty's decision to flee, live in the midwest, and never be able to go home again like his pops advised -- very difficult.