Ratchet Movies We Can’t Help But Love

“Jody, my Jody.” This film as a whole is not necessarily the most ratchet thing I’ve ever seen–I think it makes a good point from time to time about growing up and what it means to really be a quote on quote “grown a** man.” But there’s so much rachet activity on behalf of characters like Yvette (remember when she swung on him and he swung back?), his best friend Sweetpea (the fact that he prayed before killing Snoop Dogg’s Rodney still baffles me…), and of course, Jody’s mother’s new boyfriend, Melvin it’s hard not to give it the ratchet stamp. To this day, the sex scene with Ving Rhames’ big self and Adrienne-Joi Johnson hopping around the bedroom turns my stomach like NO other. But if this movie were to play on BET right now I’d probably find myself watching…without the sex scene thankfully. And who doesn’t enjoy seeing Tyrese?

Halle Berry is a very well established actress these days but before the Oscar she starred in a fine film called “B.A.P.S.”– short for Black African Princesses. It chronicles the lives of two hood-ratish women with Hollywood ambitions. They get what they think is their big break when a grandson scheming for his inheritance  discovers them outside a video girl audition. (Popping extra hard.) I won’t ruin it, if you haven’t seen it–because I suggest you do. But the movie is complete with obnoxiously elaborate hairstyles, gold teeth, latex cat suits, stereotypes and soul food.

I don’t know too many women that have mad love for this movie like that, but I’ve found plenty of brothas that have this mess on their DVD shelf–on bootleg. The premise in itself is ratchet enough, but the mixture of less than stellar acting, more thongs than we ever needed to see, a bloody fight scene and The Player’s Club being destroyed by a rocket, this little movie was reaching. But ask any guy who has seen it and you would think it was a Martin Scorcese-caliber piece of work.

Sprung

Tisha Campbell was everywhere in the 80s and 90s. Music, television and movies- baby girl did it all when it came to black media. So it’s no surprise that she showed up in the 1997 film “Sprung.” Brandy (Tisha Campbell-Martin) and Montel (Rusty Cundieff) manage to fall in love, much to the distress of their best friends Clyde (Joe Torry) and Adina (Paula Jai Parker). Their friends try their hardest to sabotage the relationship. Grimy business. A majority of the ratchetness, as you might expect comes from the side kick characters. Gold-digging Adina and perpetrating Clyde provide moments of hilarity. Specifically during their sex scene. Adina is trying to encourage Clyde with her dirty talk and she prompts him to say her name. “My coochie makes you sweat, say Adina n*gga!” Straight ratchet, straight comedy.If that’s not enough for you- the film features a character called “Godzilla Nuts”… need I say more?

Geez, Jamie Foxx was in his share of stupid movies back in the day, huh? What a comeup! If you haven’t seen Booty Call, you need to go sit in the corner in time out because it’s definitely a very important film in the ratchet movie catalog. The characters have names like Bunz, Rushon, and Lysterine (pronounced like the mouthwash), and the only thought-provoking moments are the times where the characters make you wonder if after seven weeks of dating (less than two months), you should be ready to give up the goods. Seriously? But with a name like Booty Call and crazy Tommy Davidson in the movie, what else can you really expect but foolery?

Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood

If the title isn’t ratchet to you then I can’t comprehend what your definition of that term might be. But as random and silly as it was, I could watch it over and over again. A classic Wayne’s brothers parody film, Marlon and Shawn Wayans made a fool of everything from Boyz in the Hood to Menace to Society. They rode around with rocket launchers in the back of mail trucks, matched gats to their shoes and tried to wife up chicks with more kids than the neighborhood as a whole. Remember the dance scene between the two elderly women at the church!? Love this hot mess of a movie!

Whaat?!? Not our beloved “Coming to America”! Yes loves, Coming to America is a ratchet film indeed, Eddie Murphy just went undercover with it. How else would you describe, Soul Glo stains on a wall, a talent show featuring a band named Sexual Chocolate (with Eddie Murphy rocking a Rick James wig.) Ratchet.

The very premise of BeBe’s Kids was ratchet. An irresponsible mother who leaves her children in the care of complete strangers. It’s crazy. It would be one thing if the children were well behaved– but instead they’re living terrors, destroying theme park party, fighting in public and literally staging a mutiny, all while their chaperones are off trying to dodge exes and make a love connection. There’s nothing like unsupervised children from the hood. The epitome of ratchet and yet every time I watch it I find myself singing all the lyrics, delivering all the punch lines to “Robin’s” (Faizon Love’s) jokes and ultimately feeling sorry for those neglected children.

If you haven’t got the memo yet, most parody movies are a hot, glorious mess–and I mean that in a good way. A parody of gangsta rap as a whole, in CB4 we get to see Chris Rock with a pseudo Jheri curl, and hear him throw about a few bars (terrible ones of course). And who can’t recite the classic song from the movie, “I’m Black Ya’ll”? If that doesn’t give you hysterical memories about this movie, then the love scene where Rock is carried into the bedroom by his more muscular groupie lover for the evening (who “puts him to bed”) will definitely have you on the floor in tears.

Bill Bellamy (Drayton Jackson) is a hot mess. Using women like disposable napkins, with the exception of his steady girlfriend, Lisa (Lark Voorhies). And not only is he living a scandalous life, he brags about his whorish ways to his sister, Jenny (Natalie Desselle) and her friend, Katrina (Mari Morrow). Tired of his mess, Jenny and Katrina make it their personal mission to expose Dray’s morally corrupted lifestyle.  Sooo aside from Bill Bellamy’s incessant sexcapades, with multiple ratchet and often stupid women, an even more ratchet factor comes in when Katrina gives Dray the booty. Did she do it to get him caught up? Or did she do it cause she’d been jonesin’ the whole time. Probably a little bit of both. But the question still remains, why sleep with a man who you know  has more sexual partners than Wilt Chamberlin?!?