My liberal instincts tremble at the thought, but the fact remains: the gangsta routine is getting a little old--not as a nuanced, well-considered exploration of black poverty and the desperate acts to which it drives people, but as pop iconography. The image of some jerk with plenty of bling and a pimped-out ride acting tough and shooting people is everywhere, it's inescapable, and it's boring me into a stupor. There's been so little variation to this cultural stereotype that it's become the hair-metal image of the 21^st century: a bunch of people carousing in a laboured macho way and calling it entertainment. A case in point is Never Die Alone, which would rather like you to believe that it's a penetrating character study of an unregenerate gangster-rake; alas, it has no new cards to play beyond the usual clichés and a cheesy noirish fatalism that was a part of the movies long before the makers of Never Die Alone showed up.

The first thing we see is a black man, King (DMX), lying dead in a coffin. King informs us in voiceover that what goes around comes around, you get what's coming to you, and other such bromides--tipping us off to the fact that he was a) a gangster, and b) not very nice. Flash back to his return to some nameless urban centre after a stint in prison: his narration now manifests itself as his dictated memoirs, although he doesn't get a chance to complete them as a misunderstanding over a long-overdue debt leaves him dying in the street. But a writer named Paul (David Arquette) drives his corpse to the hospital, inherits his belongings (long story), and ends up listening to the tapes, leading to yet another voiced-over flashback, this time to King arriving in L.A., taking up with a starlet, getting her hooked on heroin, and building a drug empire--addicting and ruining several other women along the way.

So what's missing? A motive. There's no allusion to the environment that could produce a ruthless player like King, meaning that we don't really understand him--as an individual, a social phenomenon, or merely a subject of interest. DMX does what he can with the role (which, in a remarkably assured performance, is plenty), but the character remains opaque throughout, doing awful things for the hell of it with no psychological explanation. He's practically born full-grown on the streets of L.A., meaning that there's not much meat to his story--and screenwriter James Gibson must know this, because he pads it with tired machinations surrounding Paul, Paul's slumming in a poor black neighbourhood, and some strained intrigue involving gangsters on the heels of King's car. All that we really know about King is that he's a latter-day Tony Montana, and that that is presumably entertainment enough.

Of course, one can point to King's downfall and say that he is punished for his crimes, but that's the oldest gambit in the book: sanctioning the depiction of licentious behaviour through its eventual vilification. Besides, even the punishment isn't punishment--it's the old live-fast-die-young-leave-a-good-looking-corpse scenario, with that fatalistic edge adding a tinge of delicious masochism. Director Ernest Dickerson puts the final nail in the coffin by lighting the film like a carnival, taking what ought to be brutal blows in a world of hurt and softening them into a slick and empty music video. It's fun, it's exciting, it's gangsta--meaning that anyone wanting to understand and feel for someone like King (or any of the characters) is completely out of luck.

Never Die Alone comes to us on DVD from Fox in a flipper edition featuring both 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and 1.33:1 fullscreen presentations; while the image suffers from (perhaps premeditated) excessive grain, that's largely compensated for by the beautifully saturated colours essential for the film's sophisticated palette. Meanwhile, though the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio isn't dazzlingly articulated, it does pull out some interesting surround effects involving incidental music.

Extras begin on side one with a commentary track featuring Dickerson, Gibson, and the incomparable DMX. As far as the director and screenwriter are concerned, the track is a washout, with the usual it-was-cold-that-day irrelevancies and statements of obvious plot development. The hyper-enthusiastic DMX, however, makes it all worthwhile as he whips himself into a frenzy of awe for the film. (Fans, take note: he also raps on the track.) A making-of featurette (5 mins.) is less successful, reducing DMX and everybody else to generic soundbites and generally destroying what's great about DMX's informal commentary appearance. Trailers for Kiss of the Dragon, The Transporter, The Young Master, and Royal Warriors round out side one. Side two features the same yakker plus a section of 11 deleted scenes (with commentary by Dickerson and Gibson that isn't much better than the main track) notable mostly for a few hilarious asides concerning David Arquette and his White Negro affectations. A 2-minute "Inside Look" at the execrable-looking Jimmy Fallon vehicle Taxi rounds out the platter.-Travis Hoover