True to the Game 3 (2021)

(On TV, March 2022) If you had told me, right after watching the first True to the Game film, that I would be looking forward to a third instalment’s BET channel TV premiere, I would have called you craaazy. Just re-read my review to understand why. Heck, I had trouble bringing myself to watching the sequel. But True to the Game 2 was a significant step up—abandoning the more irritating elements of the first film and focusing on a more engaging storyline of a woman being stalked for past transgressions. I was looking forward to this third instalment… and was disappointed to find out that it went back to the first film in more ways than one. Resurrecting a character whose death was the point of the first film was the first problem—having the action move back to Philadelphia is a second issue and re-glorifying crime is the final straw. Taking a wholesale liquidation approach to its plotting, this concluding instalment gets back to the first film’s weird ambivalence toward illicit activities—sure, there’s violence and death of about half of the main cast, but it’s all papered over by characters who don’t really think as if they’re criminals, and point at far worse criminals as justification for their acts. (It’s also all about money as motivation, which doesn’t exactly ennoble anyone either.)  The series heroine once again feels overshadowed by the male lead (another problem that the second instalment had resolved), and the cinematography is far less distinctive as well. Executed with a low budget, True to the Game 3’s execution is nothing special: Director David Wolfgang doesn’t do much with what he has. Erica Peeples is bland, and few actors distinguish themselves—the obvious exception being veteran Starletta DuPois as “Gah-Git.”  What a disappointment—failing to capitalize on the gains made during the second instalment of the series, True to the Game 3 remains better than the first film, but that’s not saying much.