After watching CB4 I'm wondering how much royalties they had to pay because a lot of those gangsta tunes sounded very familiar. The music was actually the best thing about this movie, along with some good comical scenes. I laughed four or five times, good laughs, but overal that's not enough for a comedy. Parodizing the west coast rap gangstas was funny, the real artists appearing in a couple scenes was also nice to see, but it was the soundtrack that enjoyed the most. The story itself isn't that great, the acting is okay but not from everybody. CB4 is good to watch once but saying it's the greatest rapumentary of all time, to quote another reviewer, is highly exaggerated.

There was a moment at the beginning of this film where we got to see 30 seconds of Halle Berry. That is the only thing that made my investment of time worthwhile. After that it was all down hill.

I guess this was supposed to be a mocumentary similar to This is Spinal tap. That would be cool except you have to listen to motherfu**er every other second and also subject yourself to a constant barrage of mysogenic, homophobic trash.

In addition to Halle, it also featured Khandi Alexander (CSI) and Teresa Randle (Girl 6), but to see them you had to suffer through Chris Elliott and Phil Hartman - hardly worth the effort.

Did I mention you have to listen to motherfu**er every other second?

It's always difficult to do a hard-hitting parody of anything. One needs to have knowledge of a topic as well as a general affection for it. If you hate a topic, your distaste for the topic will come out in cruel jokes and that is not good for the target audience for parodies which is often fans of the material which was parodied. They will not want to see parodies which are mean-spirited. If you like a topic, you won't make a mean-spirited parody. Your affection for your topic will be clear in the movie you make.

This film is very funny in portraying the hypocrisy of family values politicians such as senate candidate Robinson(Phil Hartman) condemning gangsta rap for political gain while his kid Ben (J.D. Daniels) idolizes the group and has plastered his wall's room with posters of the group. It's also excellent in establishing that the group has not come up from poverty but actually has suburban roots. None of the characters (portrayed by Chris Rock, Deezer D, and Allen Payne) have fought their way into this business opportunity from poverty. All have seen a business opportunity or a musical opportunity but they have not made themselves out of nothing, another trope the music industry has not shrunk from.

The earnestness of documentary filmmaker A. White (Chris Elliott) is also funny - the earnest desire to depict of a white man to treat rap and rappers with respect is also mocked hilariously by Elliott's nebbishness. The depiction of rap groupie Sissy is hilariously parodied by Khandi Alexander in over-the-top excess. Alexander shreds the promiscuity of the super-groupie with her over-the-top depiction. Gusto as depicted by Charlie Murphy is also hilarious. Murphy tears into the role of a truly bad man who serves as a club owner but who also deals drugs on the side. The willingess of MC Gusto and his crew to appropriate Gusto's name to promote an image of toughness is also a good method to allow the mens' true toughness to be revealed.

I think if anything, this film's middle section could have been developed more into a harsher, more acerbic treatment of the hypocrisy of politicians, the disingenuousness of the would-be gangsta-rappers, and of the over-the-top obscenity which often seems so gratuitous that it loses its ability to shock. Screenwriters Nelson George and Chris Rock, if anything, understated the acidity of their idea. The ability of gangsta rap to withstand barbed, extended parody is greater than the parody they have made here. The segment in which the group goes on tour could have been longer and Robinson's hypocrisy could have withstood a lot more parody also. All in all, this is a good film which could have been a great film.