
A tribute to graffiti art and the city where it all began. Blest, a 19-year-old graffiti writer, has just graduated from high school. With no ambition toward mainstream goals of work and family, he spends his time bombing the city with graffiti messages until he and his crew become the most wanted bombers by the corrupt NYPD Vandal Squad. He even attracts major media and gallery attention for his tags. Also part of Blest's crew are Buk 50 and his younger brother Lune, whose a... (Full plot summary below)
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A tribute to graffiti art and the city where it all began. Blest, a 19-year-old graffiti writer, has just graduated from high school. With no ambition toward mainstream goals of work and family, he spends his time bombing the city with graffiti messages until he and his crew become the most wanted bombers by the corrupt NYPD Vandal Squad. He even attracts major media and gallery attention for his tags. Also part of Blest's crew are Buk 50 and his younger brother Lune, whose arrest and beating by the NYPD causes the crew to wage a full-on graffiti war against the city. As they fight with their spray cans and their tags, Blest meets a political activist, Alexandra. Soon after, Blest's relationship with Buk 50 and the crew fragments as Blest ponders his position in life.
Leave your thoughts about Bomb the System.
| New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanThe first feature from Adam Bhala Lough is brashly passionate in its desire to express the power and validity of graffiti art. But it's also preachy and single-minded, populated by a world of sympathetic heroes and hissable villains. |
| Seattle TimesTom KeoghThoroughly fails to convince that its handful of New York characters known as 'bombers,' graffiti mongers futilely yearning for immortality via nightly despoiling of public and private property, is of any tragic interest. |
| New York TimesStephen HoldenBomb the System, which rides on a subtle hip-hop soundtrack, might be described as soulful pulp; cult recognition awaits it. |
| Los Angeles TimesKevin CrustHurting the film is the fact that the central character, Anthony, is so self-absorbed. |
| TV GuideMaitland McDonaghIn the end it's all seductive surface and no substance, but Lough has a bold eye and a vivid sense of uniquely urban beauty. |
| Film Journal InternationalEric MonderThe story is so loosely developed and devoid of suspense, it barely seems to exist. |
| Film ThreatEric CamposExcellent acting, great music, amazing artwork and gorgeous Christopher Doyle type cinematography make this film an absolute treat to sit through. It's like a big piece of candy. |
| L.A. WeeklyErnest HardyAs Bomb snakes its way toward tragedy, it grates rather than entices. The actors come off more as poseurs than as characters, and the film's political and cultural insights are superficial and old hat. |
| NewsdayJohn AndersonLough references Basquiat, without naming him, but in the end can't quite hijack the late artist's cred for his own hit-and-run movie. |
| Boston GlobeTy BurrVisually dazzling and dramatically trite -- it's virtuoso piffle. |