ATL
''ATL" is one of those filmic byproducts (in this case, a promotional vehicle for the rapper Tip Harris, a.k.a. T.I.) that somehow manage to emerge from the mill of commerce with their modesty preserved. The reek of synergy is strong -- the movie is being released the same week as T.I.'s album ''King" -- but so, in its unambitious way, is the script.
A hat-tip to the censor here: To secure the PG-13 rating that allows them to reach their target audience, the makers of ''ATL" were obliged to steer clear of the more sensational aspects of hip-hop movies and concentrate instead on producing a nice little story, in which the elements of teen romance, class-based drama, and ghetto morality tale are mingled with some expertise.
Is ''ATL" even a hip-hop movie? There's hip-hop in it, certainly, but unlike the recent vehicles for Eminem and 50 Cent -- respectively, ''8 Mile" and ''Get Rich or Die Tryin' " -- it does not have a rapper hero. Rashad (played by Harris) is not propelling himself out of the ghetto with his fast mouth. He is a meditative young man who sits doodling in his basement and dreams of having his cartoons published in the local funny pages. Rather than attempting to provide T.I. with a gunfire-heavy hip-hop back story, ''ATL" advertises the feminine virtues of gentleness, diligence, and the drawing of pretty things in one's journal.
ATL means Atlanta, and the setting for the movie is the outlying neighborhood of Mechanicsville. There Rashad lives with his younger brother Ant and Uncle George, going to school, working in the family business (a janitorial service called Swann Cleaning), and trying to keep his nose clean. The tearaway Ant, however, played by Evan Ross Naess, is more interested in the quick score and thus provides an entry into the story for the looming kingpin-figure Marcus (OutKast's Big Boi), who arrives in a quake of car stereo bass and recruits him into his drug army. Meanwhile, Rashad and his crew are perfecting their moves down at the local roller rink Cascade, and Rashad is becoming involved, via some PG-13 embraces, with the gorgeous New-New (Lauren London).
As for T.I., he proves himself a worthy vessel for the kind of teen dreams that ''ATL" is courting. Taut-necked but easy, sleepy-eyed but with a wakeful austerity in the leanness of his face, and showing a super-Southern drawl that tightens into a snarl when he's roused, he carries the film unproblematically on his slender shoulders. You just relax, he seems to be saying, and leave my imminent mega-stardom to me.
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