Makaveli - Hail Mary (1997)
**1/2 (of four)
"Hail Mary" was made just after the death of 2Pac, and unlike every other posthumous Pac video that's packed full of the same video clips and stills, this one actually attempts to tell a story of its own. A horror story with a gangsta twist. A young black man who can't act is in his prison cell, talking to his older, wiser cellmate. "I was set up, O.G.!" claims the YBMWCA. "Revenge has a funny, funny way of settling the score," responds the OWC.
Cue shots of a cemetery where - you guessed it - the recently deceased Makaveli is buried. You know he and the YBMWCA were friends because they're seen in a picture together. Cue a bolt of lightning, straight through Makaveli's tombstone. Cue a simultaneous bolt of lightning straight through the picture of Makaveli and the YBMWCA.
What follows is three minutes of a Final Destination-esque pursuit of the Real Killers by fate itself, or perhaps just the unseen ghost of Makaveli. Three gang members are playing video games on a big screen TV in a mansion. They get split up. One gets run over by an unmanned car. The other gets a chandelier dropped on him. The third ends up in the pool with an electrically charged cable headed straight to the water. Revenge has been served.
"Hail Mary" has a spooky beat and a haunting chorus, but the lyrics are mostly about going crazy in the ghetto and killing people. Revenge and the penitentiary are mentioned like once, but director Frank Sacramento (who cut his teeth on a couple of Hootie videos just prior), with his dark, blue-tint visuals, took the concept and ran with it. It's half-cheeseball, half-appealing and, paired up with a song this good, the video's pretty easy to get through.
"Hail Mary" was made just after the death of 2Pac, and unlike every other posthumous Pac video that's packed full of the same video clips and stills, this one actually attempts to tell a story of its own. A horror story with a gangsta twist. A young black man who can't act is in his prison cell, talking to his older, wiser cellmate. "I was set up, O.G.!" claims the YBMWCA. "Revenge has a funny, funny way of settling the score," responds the OWC.
Cue shots of a cemetery where - you guessed it - the recently deceased Makaveli is buried. You know he and the YBMWCA were friends because they're seen in a picture together. Cue a bolt of lightning, straight through Makaveli's tombstone. Cue a simultaneous bolt of lightning straight through the picture of Makaveli and the YBMWCA.
What follows is three minutes of a Final Destination-esque pursuit of the Real Killers by fate itself, or perhaps just the unseen ghost of Makaveli. Three gang members are playing video games on a big screen TV in a mansion. They get split up. One gets run over by an unmanned car. The other gets a chandelier dropped on him. The third ends up in the pool with an electrically charged cable headed straight to the water. Revenge has been served.
"Hail Mary" has a spooky beat and a haunting chorus, but the lyrics are mostly about going crazy in the ghetto and killing people. Revenge and the penitentiary are mentioned like once, but director Frank Sacramento (who cut his teeth on a couple of Hootie videos just prior), with his dark, blue-tint visuals, took the concept and ran with it. It's half-cheeseball, half-appealing and, paired up with a song this good, the video's pretty easy to get through.
posted by daytime at 4:08 AM
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