| | | The American Dream... Their way.
Features: DVD, Aspect Ratio 1.85:1, Dolby Digital (5.1)
Stuck in a nowhere job, Ace (Wood Harris) is a restless teenager who envies the expensive cars, flashy clothes, and high-rolling lifestyle of his drug-dealing friends. Then when he sees his chance, Ace makes the move that suddenly changes his life! Drawn by the seductive lure of easy money in the illicit Harlem underground, he uses his skills to quickly take control of the streets and seize all the power that comes with it!
"An intelligent crime drama..." Keith Cassidy, Miami Herald
"The direction has a fluid, no-nonsense authority, and the performances by Harris, Phifer and Cam'ron seal the deal." Desson Howe, The Journal News
"Rings true, from the smooth dialogue to the unaffected performances of the central actors." Megan Turner, New York Post
Editor's Note
Set in the early 1980s, this entry in the African-American urban gangster genre puts character development in the front seat for a change as it rolls through the Harlem streets on its usual rise-and-fall route. Ace (Wood Harris) starts out a laundry delivery guy, but thanks to a chance encounter with a Latin coke dealer (Esai Morales), he quickly works his way to the top of a drug empire. Mitch (Mekhi Phifer) is his more extroverted, colorful pal, the "born hustler" whose bravado hides a tragic family life. For a while the money just keeps rolling in and everyone's happy, but then comes the inevitable turn to tragedy, heralded by the arrival of the brash, trigger-happy Rico (rapper Cam'ron in his screen debut). A sensitive script and moody direction by Charles Stone III allows PAID IN FULL to sidestep a lot of the cliched glamour of similar films. The violence is realistically depicted, and the ultimate emptiness and paranoia of the lifestyle is allowed to manifest slowly through a nice, low-key performance by Harris. Roc-a-Fella mogul Damon Dash produced, based on the true story of Harlem drug lords he remembers from his childhood, one of whom even served as a technical advisor.
| Features | Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Director Commentary |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Buena Vista |
| Release Date: 6/6/2006 |
| Running Time: 97 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2002 | | Catalog ID: 26092 | | UPC: 00786936181067 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Independent Spirit (2003) | | | Charles Stone III, Nominee, Independent Spirit Award |
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| | Professional Reviews | Entertainment Weekly
"...[Phifer] is electric and true..." 11/01/2002 p.51Box Office
"...Anchoring the film with quiet, awkward intensity is Wood Harris..." 12/01/2002 p.56 San Francisco Examiner 8 of 10
Paid In Full, which purports to be based on a true story, falters somewhat in the last act. The violent climax has an auspicious outcome that's hard to buy without more information and the ugliest side of street drugs--addiction--is barely broached. Finally, the film's voice-over epilogue is annoyingly vague... But the film does such a fine job of engulfing you in its world and allying you with its characters' choices, good and ill, that its shortcomings are remembered only as an afterthought. - Rob Blackwelder
Chicago Sun-Times 7 of 10
The movie is ambitious, has good energy and is well-acted, but tells a familiar story in a familiar way. The parallels to Brian De Palma's Scarface are underlined by scenes from that movie which are watched by the characters in this one. The trajectory is well-known: poverty, success, riches, and then death or jail. This plot describes countless lives, and is so common because the laws against drugs do such a good job of supporting the price and making the business so lucrative. The difference between drugs and corporate swindles, obviously, is that with drugs the profits are real. - Roger Ebert
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