The Wash (2001)

NWA has been one of the largest influences over the music of the past three decades.  Their album Straight Outta Compton came out in 1988 and the world was changed forever.  Ice Cube would go on to become one of the biggest crossover stars from rap to movies.  Eazy-E was a lyrical inspiration to many before passing away in the mid-90s.  It would be Dr. Dre, their former bandmate and Eazy-E’s rival, who would have the biggest influence over the music industry, though.

Dr. Dre became a huge producer in the rap and hip-hop world following the disbandment of NWA.  He worked for Death Row Records, where he was releasing solo albums.  He produced Snoop Dogg and worked with 2Pac before leaving the label to create his own, Aftermath Entertainment.  Some of the artists he produced included Nas, LL Cool J, and Jay-Z.  He also brought Eminem to the mainstream, which created a sort of chain reaction.  Dr. Dre found Eminem.  Eminem found 50 Cent.  50 Cent found Lloyd Banks, The Game, and the other people who have gone through G-Unit.  All because of Dr. Dre’s influence.

Much like Ice Cube, Dr. Dre dipped his toes in the water of Hollywood.  He was in a few movies, with one of the major ones for him being 2001’s The Wash.  Sean (Dr. Dre) was short on money and out of a job.  His roommate Dee Loc (Snoop Dogg) suggested that he apply for a job at The Wash, a local car wash.  After meeting the owner, Mr. Washington (George Wallace), Sean got the assistant manager job.  The workers started to hate him because he was a hard assistant, and a former employee (Eminem) began harassing Mr. Washington.

Dr. Dre’s musical influence was all over the movie.  Three of the four actors named in the synopsis were associated with Dr. Dre’s music career.  One of them was Dr. Dre himself.  The other two, Snoop Dogg and Eminem, were rappers that Dr. Dre had discovered and produced.  There were other musicians throughout the film as well, including Ludacris and Xzibit.  Dr. Dre’s connections had come in handy for building out the cast in The Wash.  His friends were a part of the movie, making it feel as influenced by Dr. Dre as Aftermath Records had.

That’s not to say that the movie was a successful foray into cinema.  It was not good.  The story was a mess and the characters were all unlikeable.  Some of the performances were fairly bad too.  Everything came together to make an entertaining mess of a movie that had the promise to be something more, but failed on most fronts.  It was wasted potential.

The writing was the most egregious fault of The Wash.  There were some major flaws in the writing that led to the movie not being nearly as good as the premise would suggest it could be.  The biggest flaw was within the actual structure of the story.  There were three main story threads.  The first was the story of Sean and Dee Loc butting heads because Sean let the power of assistant manager get to him.  The second was the storyline of the former employee threatening Mr. Washington.  And the third, which came up about halfway through the movie and became the main storyline, was that there were a couple of neighbourhood thugs who wanted to kidnap Mr. Washington to take his money.

Sean and Dee Loc’s story was the crux of The Wash.  It was their antagonism to each other that pushed the movie forward.  Sean got the job.  He disrespected his friendship because of his job.  Dee Loc got mad and began acting out against Sean, both at work and at home.  At one point, he ruined a potential relationship for Sean just because Sean had shown some authority to Dee Loc at The Wash.  Not that Sean hadn’t already ruined the relationship for himself because he lied to the woman about his job.  That’s beside the point, though.  Dee Loc was destroying Sean’s life because Sean had given him a talking to for breaking the rules.

That storyline resolved itself without closure through the kidnapping storyline.  Sean showed up to work one morning to a broken window and a note saying that Mr. Washington had been kidnapped.  He teamed up with the cashier/receptionist, Antoinette (Angell Conwell), and later Dee Loc, to trick the kidnappers into sharing their location and how many people they were.  That way, the employees of The Wash could devise a plan to save their boss and keep their jobs.  It was Sean and Dee Loc setting aside their differences to save the owner of their workplace.  The problem was that they didn’t talk to each other about setting aside their differences.  They worked together because it was what they had to do to take down the common enemy.  The sore feelings were probably still there, meaning that the storyline between the two of them wasn’t resolved.  Yet, at the end of the movie, they were fine with each other.  There was no real closure to the whole Dee Loc being mad because Sean was bossing him around story.  It was dropped as soon as Dee Loc started helping with the kidnapping situation.

It would be further ignored in the final storyline where a former employee tormented Mr. Washington.  When Sean first met Mr. Washington, he got the job as assistant manager.  As the meeting was wrapping up, Mr. Washington received a phone call.  The angry person on the other end started threatening Mr. Washington and vowing revenge for what had been done to him.  It would be discovered that this person was a disgruntled former employee who wanted revenge for being let go.  It was obvious who the character was throughout the film as there were mentions of the character’s dismissal from the other employees of The Wash.  When the threats became a real danger, the characters had to come together for safety.  Again, that didn’t resolve the friendship storyline that had plagued Sean and Dee Loc throughout the movie.  It was another distraction that brought about the finale of the movie.

The major problem in the storyline writing was the lack of closure, particularly in that friendship storyline.  The kidnapping story was resolved through two female characters waiting for the police at the house where Mr. Washington was being held captive.  Some of the kidnappers were also collateral damage in the former employee resolution, that again, ended with police.  The friendship storyline, however, was pushed aside for these two, more action heavy storylines.  At no point does the audience get to see Sean and Dee Loc make up.  They never figured out their feelings.  Instead, they forgot about their dispute when the other stuff happened, and never brought it up again before the credits.

On the other side of the writing of The Wash were the characters.  Almost nobody was likeable in the movie.  They were entertaining to watch.  That’s something.  But everyone who was working at The Wash was a terrible person.  They didn’t want to do their jobs, slacking at every possible moment.  Dee Loc was dealing drugs to customers.  Antoinette had her boyfriend visiting and distracting her.  One of the other employees was stealing money out of the cars.  Even the people who did their jobs weren’t good people.  One guy found someone being held hostage in a trunk and told the hostage that he wouldn’t help.  Sean stole a guy’s coat to pose as someone with a different job to pick up a customer.  And then there was Mr. Wash, constantly yelling at people and waving his gun around.  The whole workforce at The Wash was filled with not-so-great people.

As for the performances, most of them were alright.  The more notable bad ones came from the customers of The Wash.  Ludacris, who has become a decent enough actor over the nearly two decades since the release of The Wash, was pretty terrible in his small amount of time on screen.  His whole role was that one of the employees had sprayed his tires with Windex and he didn’t like it.  Each insult he hurled was unbelievable coming out of his mouth because he seemed to be trying to hold in laughter the whole time, instead of fuming with anger like the character was supposed to.  Xzibit and Shaquille O’Neal weren’t great either, but it was Ludacris that really stood out for his poor acting chops in The Wash.

Dr. Dre may have had an influential music career, but that success did not parlay well into film.  The Wash stands as an interesting attempt at building a cinematic career with the creative pieces that had made him successful in the past.  It may not have worked, but this will always be an important moment in the life of Dr. Dre.  His NWA bandmate, Ice Cube, made a name for himself in Hollywood.  As for Dr. Dre, he acted in a few movies around the turn of the century, with The Wash being his big starring role.  It wasn’t a success and he ended up falling back on what made him a big name in the first place.  His music.  And the rest is history.

Here are some notes about The Wash:

• The Wash was suggested by @ImPABLO_i_WRITE, who previously suggested Cabin Boy (week 173) and Thumbelina (week 286).
• Pauly Shore made a small appearance in The Wash.  He was also in Bio-Dome (week 124), Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star (week 221), Sandy Wexler (week 231), and Son in Law (week 251).
• The Wash was Shaquille O’Neal’s third Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance.  He was already featured in Jack and Jill (week 101) and Steel (week 127).
• Tommy ‘Tiny’ Lister was in The Wash.  He has been in two other movies featured in the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  They were The Human Centipede III (week 180) and Santa’s Slay (week 263).
• Finishing out the three-timers, Ludacris was in The Wash.  He also showed up in New Year’s Eve (week 57) and Fred Claus (week 265).
• Tommy Chong showed up for a funny little bit in The Wash.  He was in Evil Bong (week 52).
• George Wallace, who played Mr. Washington in The Wash, was in a little movie called Santa, Jr. (week 107).
• The Wash was the second Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance for Rashaan Nall, after Leprechaun in the Hood (week 120).
• Daryl Keith Roach made an appearance in The Wash, after having been in The Ice Pirates (week 128).
• DJ Pooh, the director of The Wash, had roles in The Wash and Budz House (week 198).
• Finally, Iva La’Shawn popped up in The Wash.  Many years later, but earlier in the Sunday “Bad” Movies schedule, Iva was in A Haunted House 2 (week 274).
• Have you seen The Wash?  What did you think of it?  Do you think that Dr. Dre should have done more movies?  Do you ever confuse Dr. Dre and Dr. Drew?  Let me know any of this stuff in the comments.
• The comments are also a place where you can toss movies at me that you think I should watch for future Sunday “Bad” Movies installments.  I’m always looking for movies to watch, either in the comments or on Twitter.  Hit me up.
• I’m going to put my Snapchat in here (jurassicgriffin), even though I’ve been using the story much less lately.
• Next week will be an interesting week as I once again dip into the area of movies that people consider the worst of all time.  One of those movies is this movie about a couple of spies working together to stop a weather controlling maniac.  That’s right.  I’m watching the film adaptation of the British television show.  The 1998 movie The Avengers (not to be confused with the more recent superhero movie) is up in seven days.  See you then.