This independent movie, recently released in a three-DVD set, was created in 2005 by King’s Mob, a group of mixed-race young adults in the New York hardcore and underground hip-hop scenes. Both of these groups of musicians and fans are motivated by DIY: do-it-yourself. The creation of Threat evolved out of that philosophy. The story is about racial tensions that result in a riot, but the fact that the film won the Grand Prize (Best Feature at the Lausanne Underground Film Festival 2006), among other awards, gives lie to the story it tells.
The pernicious, socially accepted story is that the economic pressures that have marginalized many young black and white men and women, and their choices to rebel through participation in the hardcore and hip-hop music scenes, will lead to their failure and destruction.
The characters are believable, probably due to the actors’ actual history in the two underground music scenes. This lends a vulnerability to their performance and allows the viewer to feel empathetic with them. Even the actions of the character Marco, by far the biggest scumbag in the film, are somewhat understandable. (Either David R. Fisher, who plays Marco, is a very good actor or a very real scumbag.) More real yet is the violence; it is not the stylized dance we see in Hollywood fare.
The story centers on Jim (played by Carlos Puga), a homeless, white, suburban, punk kid who lives in the city and works in a comic book store. His friendship with black co-worker Fred (Keith Middleton) allows the space for philosophical but real discussions about race, class, family, responsibility, the “real” enemy, and straightedge. This latter is a subset of the hardcore punk music scene, where kids choose to rebel against society by not drinking, doing drugs, or smoking cigarettes.
Some straightedge kids choose to take this lifestyle a step further by becoming vegetarians or vegans, and avoiding promiscuity. A very small subset of straightedge leans toward gang-like violence towards those who make different life choices, and the straightedge kids portrayed in this film fall into this last category.
The tragic thing about this story is that, although the characters in this film approach unity and understanding, the underlying tensions due to economic and family stresses lead to an explosion of violence that turns into a race riot. Men and women of both races, who were hanging out together at a straightedge show just five minutes before, suddenly separate along racial lines and start beating and killing one another - presumably because it is easier to default to race in identifying one’s enemies rather than reflect on political realities in the heat of the moment.
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