| The Players Club | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Ice Cube |
| Written by | Ice Cube |
| Starring | Bernie Mac LisaRaye McCoy-Misick Monica Calhoun Jamie Foxx |
| Music by | Frank Fitzpatrick |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
| Release date(s) | United States April 8th,1998 United Kingdom November 6th,1998 Iceland December 15th,1998 Germany December 14th,1999 |
| Running time | 104 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $5,000,000 (estimated) |
The Players Club is a 1998 comedy/drama thriller film from New Line Cinema starring Bernie Mac, LisaRaye, and Jamie Foxx. Ice Cube, who has a small role in the film, wrote and made his directorial debut. The movie made $5,894,607 in its opening week. Its box office grossed total came to $23,261,485[1]
Contents |
Diana Armstrong (LisaRaye), a young, unwed mother struggles to make enough money to pay for her college education. Diana ends up working at a shoe store, when she meets Ronnie (Chrystale Wilson), and Tricks (Adele Givens), two shady bisexual strippers that work for Dolla Bill (Bernie Mac) at The Players Club. They convince Diana she would make better money stripping, by saying "use what you got to get what you want". Dolla Bill gives Diana a job giving her the name Diamond. Everything is fine until four years into the game her cousin Ebony (Monica Calhoun) comes to live with her. After listening to Dolla's rendition of "The Strippin' Game", she starts working at the club.
Ebony soon gets out of control, excessively drinking, staying out all night and getting more influenced by Ronnie and Tricks, who encourage Ebony to do more out of club parties for groups of men. Diana tries to warn Ebony to stay away from "those two" and quit doing house parties, but Ebony declines being told what to do, choosing to ignore Diana's advice as well as coldheartedly reminding her about the time when Ronnie sexually took advantage of Diana when she was passed out at a previous party. Further tension develops between Ebony and Diana when Diana returns home one night she is followed home by an obsessive customer Myrin, to find Ebony in bed with her boyfriend Lance. Diana chases Lance out with her gun, and kicks Ebony out of her apartment.
Diana then begins dating Blue (Jamie Foxx), a deejay at the Player's Club. Meanwhile, Ebony is offered a gig to dance at Ronnie's brother Junior's (Samuel Monroe Jr.) bachelor party, under the pretense from Ronnie that other girls from the club will be dancing there too. When she realizes that she will be the only woman there in a hotel room full of hungry men, she desperately tries calling Diana to come and pick her up, but Diana doesn't, still being mad with her. Reggie (Ice Cube) and his friend Clyde (Alex Thomas), both feeling dissed by Diana and Ebony from a previous encounter, lie to Junior that Ebony will have sex with him, claiming that they "ran a train" on her. Excited, Junior bursts in on Ebony while she is changing. Ebony resists and Junior beats and rapes her. Ronnie discovers this and they both flee the hotel room. Later, Diana has a change of heart and she and Blue decide to check up on Ebony at the hotel, only to discover her bloody and unconcsious body on a bed.
This proves to be the last straw to Diana, who was growing tired of the stripper game anyway. Angered, she grabs her gun and goes to the Players Club, where Ronnie and Tricks are hiding out. After scaring the other strippers away, Diana gives the gun to Blue to cover her while she gets into a brutal fistfight with Ronnie and ultimately wins, leaving Ronnie a bloody mess. She personally quits in front of Dolla Bill, punches Tricks and leaves along with Blue. Ronnie and Tricks are arrested by the police on charges of prostitution and accessories to rape, and Junior has been picked up as well. Later that night, Diana's timing proves to be perfect when a gangster who Dolla Bill owes money to, the wheelchair-bound St. Louis, comes to collect. He personally shoots up the club (though he does give warning to the customers beforehand, allowing them to leave). After his thugs grab Dolla and throw him into the trunk of a car, St. Louis has his henchman Brooklyn (Charlie Murphy) destroy the club with a LAW rocket.
A year passes afterward and Diana has moved on with her life. She's gotten Ebony a job working at a shoe store. She continues to date Blue, and has become a successful news anchor of the city.
A successful soundtrack was released on March 17, 1998, peaking at #10 on the Billboard 200 and #2 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. It featured artists such as Ice Cube, DMX, Master P and Jay-Z, among others.
The movie debuted at No. 5.[2]