THE STORY – Discover the story of Famous Eddie, a fashion icon responsible for the meteoric rise of culture-defining grillz. Archival footage alongside contemporary perspectives illuminate his legendary impact on the face of hip-hop.
THE CAST – A$AP Rocky, Famous Eddie Plein, Mike Tyson, Michele Lamy, Goldie Aka Clifford & Price Dolly Cohen
THE TEAM – Lyle Lindgren (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 83 Minutes
Culture is ever-changing and often shaped by figures and movements that can only form naturally. The speed and magnitude of this, however, has slowed down in the last few decades. The rise of the Internet has sectioned people off into their special interests, and the existence of the monoculture and how things take off has diminished, if not fully evaporated. Within mediums, things can feel just as segmented, but luckily for Lyle Lindgren, his film “MOUTH FULL OF GOLDS” takes place prior to the Internet age, covering the birth of a fashion choice and how it has evolved alongside this shifting culture.
The film follows an unsung figure of music and fashion history: Eddie Plein (Famous Eddie) and his creation of grillz. The customizable golden teeth became a sensation and staple for so many artists, which makes the anonymity of their originator all the more surprising. The film, however, uses grillz as the backdrop for an overall exploration of the music industry, particularly hip-hop, over the last 40 years. Plein somehow found his way to be involved in most of this history, and he serves as a strong focus to explore these periods. The film includes talking head interviews from people like modern music sensation A$AP Rocky to reflect the current integration of what Plein created. Much of the footage, new and old, is rarely or never before seen, and paints a portrait of both the person and the industry in a way that feels personal and approachable.
With how rich the text of this documentary is, and the life Eddie Plein has lived, it’s a shame that so much of the filmmaking is mechanical and flat. All the tired documentary techniques are utilized here, and while it’s very competent and workmanlike, nothing remotely exciting is attempted. There are talking heads, montages, archival footage, but none of it pops in a way that rises above simple information dumps. The cinematography for the talking heads is perhaps the most egregious of these; it’s so flat and lifeless, and no subject put within the frame can elevate the image from its distracting mundanity. All of this is entirely serviceable, and perhaps won’t even be an issue to audiences enraptured by the content of the film, but for what’s supposed to be a visual medium, there’s a lot left to be desired from this film.
The pacing is quick enough for the film’s underwhelming elements to not be a death knell to the overall package. The 80 minute runtime covering four decades is brisk enough, yet impressively never feels rushed. The editing of archival footage and the overall structure of the film is also effective and works as a strong piece of documentation for modern hip-hop history. It’s far from cinematic editing, which is mostly due to the previously mentioned visuals of the film, but the editing perhaps could’ve had a bit more personality and style to fully elevate those, as it doesn’t do much to excel past the workman quality that haunts most of the feature’s crafts. In ways, it feels more like a video essay or documentary for a school, and for those, the material is strong enough to suffice. But for such an unsung and interesting protagonist, it feels like a missed opportunity, as it doesn’t reach any higher.
It can’t be overemphasized how entertaining and magnetic Plein is when on screen, and how much intrigue there is to his story. He has the material for a great narrative film to be made of his life and career, but to get to hear the story directly from his mouth has its own quality that makes this film more than worth watching. In many ways, he has a classic “rise and fall” story, but unlike a lot of those, the man at the center is alive and well on the other side of it. The admiration which director Lyle Lindgren has for him is palpable in the ways he puts his story together. The film tells Plein’s tale of when he was the beating heart of the music industry, and treats his struggles in the digital age as more a reflection on the times than the man himself. Plein carries himself with so much dignity throughout the documentary, and the film is appropriately a respectful ode to him and his legacy.
It’s a difficult task to judge a documentary, as there’s a competency to so many of them that feels trivial to complain about, but can be hard to overlook. Especially for people who watch so many non-fiction films, there’s a level of uninteresting filmmaking that becomes tiring to watch and generally disappointing. That being said, “MOUTH FULL OF GOLDS” is worth watching for the previously anonymous lead subject and the way Lindgren positions him as a center point of hip-hop history. The unique perspective alone makes it enjoyable, but one yearns for something more imaginative and energetic from the crafts in the documentary medium.
