Players Club, The

Aroview: Proving a talent on his first directorial outing, actor-rapper Ice Cube enlists a no-name cast in this seriocomic glimpse into a tawdry Georgia strip joint, tempering the essential grimness of the lap-dancer's and patron's lives with unsentimental humour. While the action shifts back and forth between realism and a farcical criminal subplot, it all seems of a piece, like a world-weary been-there gangsta-monologue come to life.