I greatly enjoyed this film. It was highly entertaining, and easy to follow. It got me involved immediately with the characters and what was happening with them.

It was kind of a crime, action, thriller with a bit of comedy and romance thrown in - all of which kept it lively. It is very well paced, and moves along at a good rhythm.

It you like well built black men, you can definitely feast your eyes in this film. I don't remember when I have seen such a fine variety of good looking black actors. They all looked as if they worked out at the gym, also well-groomed, and wearing some really nice threads.

The film revolves around a young black man named Malik Bishop, played quite well by Anthony "Treach" Criss. I'm not familiar with him, but understand he is a rapper, and I think this may be his first acting role.

Malik has grown up under some rough circumstances and he is now a hit-man who works for an older white man named Damien Wiles (Charles Guardino),who has illusions that he is some kind of white Martin Luther King, when in reality he's a low life scumbag.

Damien has a young black woman who is his girlfriend, but he is concerned she is cheating on him and wants Malik to take her out.

The summary here at the website, regarding this film led me to believe that the hit-man was in love with Cynda, the kingpin's girlfriend, but Malik has his own girlfriend, Hylene. However, Cynda comes to influence Malik in making a major decision in his life.

Hylene, played by Shireen Crutchfield, is very pretty. She is a hit-woman, so she and Malik actually have a lot in common.

There's lots of shooting, but no gore, and in the version I saw on BET, there was no rough language at all either.

The dialog is breezy and fun, and the shoot-outs and action scenes are frequently done with tongue in cheek, for example Malik is looking straight ahead, but holding out his arm with the gun and shooting--and still hits the guy. So this film is also kind of a parody of the guns and hit men kind of films that are out there.

9 Stars

Kantz and Ramsey also put together "The Big Hit", which I disliked so much, I demanded my money back from the video store. But I admit that there is something appealing about this one.

The film is an attempt to do comic noir, and is definitely of a flavor similar to that of Tarantino's films and of the British neo-noir.

The problem such films have is one of bad taste - it's difficult to know when killing and hurting people can be made amusing, and when it just hurts and laughing at it is stepping close to something profoundly unhealthy.

However, "Love and a Bullet" only crosses that line a couple of times; and I think much of the appeal of the film comes out of the performance of Treach, who is right on the money throughout. Some of the dialog is over much, and more could have been done with less - although I admit that for a film put together for half-a-million in 2002, this really looks well-made. But I really mean less in the story and in the dialog, which goes over the top once too often to suit me.

But on the whole, an entertaining Post-Modern crime comedy of the 'outre' variety.

Ben Ramsey and Kantz co-directed "Love and a Bullet," a stylish romantic action film with an urban twist, in 2002. The film's most essential component is Malik Bishop (Treach, lead rapper for rap group Naughty by Nature),a young professional hit-man in Los Angeles who engages in a would-be forbidden romance with his employer's main squeeze. The drama in the plot comes from the fact that Bishop's latest assignment forces him to question his profession for the first time and reflect on the violent path that his life has taken him. Anyone looking for a deep rumination or moral dilemmas on the life of a hit-man better look elsewhere, say "The Professional" (1994). But Treach makes an interesting and charismatic lead character because he lets us get to know him, like him, and sympathize with the choices he's made and how he's learning to live with the consequences of those decisions. And plus he's a just an all-around bad-ass who must ultimately learn to fend for himself in the film's blood-soaked, action-packed climax. The movie is also pretty funny, too, albeit in a darkly comic fashion. One sequence that will have you laughing out loud is when Bishop and his mentor Buddy (Sam Scarber) lay siege to a house where a federal witness is being held up and they not only succeed in slaying the witness, but also the six federal agents protecting him. All the while, Buddy is complaining about why the job is so messed up because they didn't have time to plan it properly. Other darkly humorous instances abound, but that is by far the funniest in the whole movie. Not a perfect film by any standard, but it does make for a quick 87-minute trip with your brain locked squarely in the "off" position.

7/10