The central character of Waist Deep, a security guard named O2, is an ex-con trying to get his life back on track and to be a good father to his young boy. But when his car—and his son—are stolen by a drug lord named Big Meat, O2 decides that the ends justify the means. And the means, well, that involves starting a gang war and designing a robbery.
Before long, viewers are waist deep in moral compromise.
Bob Hoose (Plugged In) says the move "never rings true." He describes it as "a typical gutter-mouthed action flick on steroids, careening wildly between bloody grotesqueries and teary Vaseline-lensed sentimentality."
"Buried somewhere in director Vondie Curtis-Hall's gritty but empty urban drama is a story about the love between a father and son," writes David DiCerto (Catholic News Service). "But be warned anything positive it has to say is drowned out by the bullets and brutality. And the morally murky means by which they go about raising ransom is also problematic."
Mainstream critics call it a waste.