The Players Club

Rapper Ice Cube's debut as a director/screenwriter results in the most negative portrayal of African-Americans and women seen on the screen in years. Dreaming of a career in broadcast journalism but strapped for cash, single parent Diana Armstrong (Lisa Ray) takes a job stripping at the upscale-yet-sleazy Players Club, where she's forced to take part in previously unthinkable acts. Cube offers us a couple of obvious do-gooders, and in the end he allows Diana redemption and a future, but most of The Players Club's world thrives on torture, bloodshed, and the irresistible urge to commit rape whenever the opportunity presents itself -- to say nothing of the playful way in which these actions are represented. At the Nickelodeon, the Fresh Pond, and the Allston and in the suburbs.

-- Danny Lorber