Esteemed journalist Khalid Strickland makes his screen debut with “Thug Opus,” a gritty, Tarentinoeque, action film set in Brooklyn. The film takes the viewer inside the life of hustlers who seek their claim of power and status on the streets. Strickland, who also goes by the alias Dirty Angel is able to paste together the realistic look into the life of the thug, however he does this with a different view lens than may sometimes be expected. For example one character is a dominatrix who leads a client on a dog collar and forces him to eat Alpo. Camera angles and perspective is also skewed from a perspective than you may not expect.
The real achievement for Strickland is that he is not academically trained, so in many ways he admits that this film was his film school. However, in true guerilla filmmaking fashion he pulled on his resources to make this movie. And, Thug Opus’s rough edge is its appeal. It delivers on what it’s supposed to be- a true grit tale of the illegal side of the inner city. For information on Thug Opus and future endeavors from Strickland visit his company’s website at http://www.supremearsenal.com/
