Innovative `Bomb' is off-target
By James Verniere

``Bomb the System'' introduces stylish young filmmaker Adam Bhala Lough to the scene but is otherwise disappointing.

A gritty, New York City-set-and-shot drama about graffiti artists, the film has a certain been-there, done-that element and is going to remind some viewers of the bad old days of ``Turk 182!'' (1985), a film in which New York City's most notorious graffiti artist is played by . . .Timothy Hutton.

Anthony (Mark Webber), also known as ``Blest,'' is a ``graf writer'' (i.e., graffiti artist) from the lower-class suburbs who bunks with Hazer (Joey Dedio), a rich buddy who plays a character on a Telemundo soap opera. Blest is on a quest to cover every open space with his ``art'' while eluding the city's ludicrously corrupt ``Vandal Squad'' (no, I never heard of them, either).
Blest and his inner-city friends, the brothers Justin ``Buk 50'' (Gano Grills) and Kevin ``Lune'' Broady (Jade Yorker), challenge one another to greater and greater acts of artistic rebellion, acts some viewers may find to be the equivalent of maliciously defacing public and private property, but whatever.

Blest, who is on the verge of crossing over into the legitimate art world and maybe even going to college in San Francisco, hooks up with Alexandra (Jaclyn DeSantis), a punk and fellow artist whose speciality is illegally posting politically oriented ``snipes'' or posters on public property.

The future looks bright, if a bit spray-paint splattered. But everything changes when Blest and his buddies encounter rogue drug addict and alcoholic Vandal Squad Officer Bobby Cox (an overwrought Al Sapienza) and tragedy strikes.

As Blest might say to his homies, ``Yo, I feel dat.''

What's interesting about ``Bomb the System'' is not the juvenile, wish-fulfillment plot, almost comically street-slang-laden dialogue, amateurish staging or dubious validity of its message about art. It is the way the film was shot, guerrilla-style on the streets of New York, and the truly accomplished editing by Jay Rabinowitz. Director Bhala Lough, who has shot videos for MF Doom, has the eye of a visual storyteller.
All he needs now is a story more worthy of his talent.

(``Bomb the System'' contains profanities, drug use, violence and brief nudity.)