These days, it’s not that uncommon for a kid to grow up under the guidance of his grandmother and uncle rather than his mother and father. But even under such non-nuclear family circumstances, skipping school to learn some harder life lessons with your uncle doesn’t normally include learning how to shoot a gun and witnessing your first murder.
Vincent (Common) and Woody (Michael Rainey Jr.) have a quite a day on the streets of Baltimore. Photo by Bill Gray.
Such is the case with Luv, which sees its theatrical release after its Sundance Film Festival debut last year. After serving eight years in prison, Vincent (Common) returns to the mean streets of Baltimore in hopes of opening his own restaurant and turning his life around. But he quickly learns it’s not always that easy to leave your previous life in the past, especially when some people aren’t happy to see you back on the streets (and certainly don’t want to see you succeed while they’re still caught up in the street life). So a day that begins with the minor indiscretion of keeping his 11-year-old nephew Woody (Michael Rainey Jr.) out of school in order to show him how to be a real man quickly turns into a learning experience of a different kind when Vincent is forced to return to his violent past in order to achieve a better future.
At first, Woody is loving his day off as Vincent takes him to a tailor to get his own suit, teaches him how to drive his Mercedes-Benz and takes him to visit his uncles Arthur (Danny Glover) and Fish (Dennis Haysbert). But when Vincent finds out he needs a few thousand dollars in order for his business loan to be approved, Fish encourages him to do one more deal in order to get the money he needs to open his own restaurant and finally make a legitimate living. Woody’s rite-of-passage-like day turns into a Training Day-like scenario when Vincent’s reluctant drug deal goes bad, forcing Vincent to shoot an unstable Nigerian dealer (Sammi Rotibi). Vincent, the subject of Woody’s superhero-like drawings, realizes he needs to show Woody a few other things (such as driving a car and shooting a gun) in order for them both to make it through this harrowing day.
Woody (Michael Rainey Jr.) embarks on his next journey in "Luv." Photo by Bill Gray.
With a cast that includes veteran actors like Glover and Haysbert (the “Are you in good hands?” guy from the Allstate commercials), as well as rapper-turned-actor Common (whose future is clearly not in good hands with Fish), it would be hard for Luv not to be good. But it’s the emotionally powerful performance of the young Rainey that really makes this movie about a boy who ultimately just wants to reunite with his estranged mother that much more intriguing. And after the climactic final confrontation between Vincent, Arthur and Fish leaves Woody crying in the woods when the police arrive, we eventually find out that he has learned a few valuable lessons in survival amidst all the inadvertent violence he has seen. But as Woody takes his surprising next steps into manhood, his future is just as uncertain as Vincent’s was just a few hours earlier.