REVIEW: Don't Be Nice

"Don't Be Nice" is a documentary about five young Black, Afro-Hispanic and gay poets as they prepare to compete at the 2016 National Poetry Slam in Atlanta.

It's a fascinating combination of reality show, coming-of-age story, social critique and literary boot camp, like if Netflix's "Cheer" was about performative poets instead of cheerleaders.

The documentary is the debut from director Max Powers and follows Ashley August, Timothy DuWhite, Joël François, Sean DesVignes and Noel Quiñones, who will represent New York's Bowery Poetry Club at the national competition. They have nine weeks to hone their poems and performances and are guided by coaches Lauren Whitehead and Jon Sands.

All of this takes place against the backdrop of the 2016 election, the deaths of Black men Philando Castille and Alton Sterling at the hands of police and Black Lives Matter protests over police violence against Black people. The inclusion of video of Castille's and Sterling's deaths in the documentary created a row between the filmmakers and the poets when the film was released theatrically.

In a 2018 New York Times article after the film's premiere at the Hot Docs festival in Toronto, DuWhite and François took issue with, among other things, how the movie was edited to make it appear that they were watching the videos on their phones over and over again when they weren't.

Producer and Bowery Club executive director Nikhil Melnechuk told the Times that the footage was included because without it, preview audiences were confused when the poets were shown reacting to news events.

Some changes were made to the film after the Times article, a publicist told me.

None of the poets attended the 2018 premiere, according to the article.

In the film, Powers doesn't give us a lot of insight into the poets' backgrounds, which is a pity. What is obvious, though, is that they are each charismatic and gifted, sharing their confusion, rage, joy, frustration and catharsis through their poems and recitations.

The impending competition means there is inherent tension built into the film -- the Bowery team looks downright shaky after they are pummeled at a regional event in Boston before the national contest.

But Whitehead's approach to coaching and poetry is just as intriguing.

She calmly pushes the poets to delve deeper into their lives and their work, burrowing beneath the surfaces of what appear to be decent poems to find writing that is more honest and true.

In one instance, DesVignes offers a heartfelt piece about Miles Davis, which elicits only a sympathetic shrug from Whitehead.

"I think it would be a shame if your poem was about Miles Davis and not about you," she tells him.

What he eventually writes and performs makes a much greater impact.

Whitehead and DuWhite clash somewhat over her approach. He wants to win and knows the formula of performance and words that he thinks are key to victory.

"I know how to slam. I'm good at playing audiences," he says, which reveals a certain cynicism in his approach.

Whitehead is more concerned with the poetry and helping these young people express themselves. She presses DuWhite and August to transform a piece they perform together from what was once a riff on the movie "The Purge" to a cathartic, emotional performance inspired by a traumatic incident in DuWhite's life.

To see the journey of the poem's evolution and how it affects DuWhite is powerful.

The buildup to nationals continues, as the poets refine their poems and performances and we get to see the work as it develops. A group piece, "Google Black," emerges as a particularly strong work of pop culture criticism and humor.

No spoilers here as far as how they fared in Atlanta, but the knowledge that the poets were unhappy with how some things were handled casts a bit of a cloud over the film. It doesn't negate the movie, which is a genuinely inspiring story of five young writers and the woman who helps them find their voices, but it's something to consider.