The Players Club (Ice Cube)

REVIEW
The Players Club marks a disappointing directorial debut from rapper/actor Cube. The story, what little there is, centers around Diamond (LisaRaye) and her experiences at The Players Club, a Florida strip joint where she works as a dancer in order to pay for college and support her young son. Cube proves that as a director he is visually competent and knows how to keep the action moving at a swift pace, but he is sabotaged by a misogynistic, homophobic script full of one-dimensional caricatures and inane dialogue which makes it hard to sympathize with Diamond or any of the characters. The last third of the film, in particular, has characters either learning their lesson or redeeming themselves through acts of violence. This is meant to give the audience a reason to care, but it only makes one feel that they've been played.