When he was a teenager, Justin Tipping got a brand new pair of Nikes, or “Kicks”. Like anyone with a new pair of shoes, he wore them with pride, but Tipping was roughed up by a group of thugs who stole them from him. He went home feeling angry humiliated, but rather than offering consolation his brother told him, “It’s OK, you’re a man now.”
Fast forward to 2009. Tipping had been accepted at the AFI and was trying to find a story to tell. He focused the incident from many years before when he was attacked and robbed.
“One memory that stuck with me was that. I came up with the idea seven years ago,” he says. “It made me rethink how we should think about violence and the culture of violence in the country.”
Tipping met co-writer Josh Beirne-Golden while at the AFI and the two have worked together ever since. Their initial thoughts were to make a film with no funding, but after several drafts, they decided to seek financing.
Kicks is Tipping’s compelling directorial debut. It is a film that focuses on 15-year-old Brandon, played by Jahking Guillory, a kid who gets a new pair of sneakers, and then gets beaten up by some neighborhood boys. Brandon seeks revenge on the boys as he sets out to retrieve his kicks. On the surface, it appears to be about revenge, but Tipping also means to explore at inner-city violence.
Tipping says the advantage of working with newcomers was he was able to have a more hands-on approach as a director. “I would listen to the actors talk back and forth, and when it didn’t sound authentic enough, I would remind them they were 15, and they were from the area. I’d say: ‘Say it how you’d say it back home.’”
The end result was some ad-libbing in the film, but the point of the scene would always come across. It would also mean that Tippings could run a set with ease and get through his day. The one recognizable face we see in the film is the Emmy-nominated Mahershala Ali, soon to be seen in Hidden Figures and Moonlight.
Guillory, who plays Brandon, more than carries the film with his memorable performance. But the surprise for Tipping came when he discovered that the actor cast as Brandon’s best friend, Albert — CJ Wallace — was Biggie Smalls’ son. Tipping laughs, “Both Party and Bullshit had been written into the film before that.” Tippings sprinkles the film with hip-hop tunes, and uses it piece his narrative together, and it works remarkably well.
In the film, as we see Brandon growing up, he has to deal with questions of masculinity. Tipping says, “We have an issue with masculinity across the economic spectrum — and violence is somehow associated with masculinity.” So we see Brandon forced to, “man up.” Tipping adds, “It was always weird to me that those social hierarchies were already set in stone and then we’re forced to go through it.” These are moments that any young man, like Brandon, will find relatable if you have to grow up in an inner city neighborhood.
When asked about his motive to make Kicks and the message he hopes people will take away from his film, Tipping says, “ I wanted everyone to feel that Brandon went through all of that, but what’s even more important is to remind people that this kind of thing happens every day in our society.” It’s a story that is so personal to Justin Tipping, it altered the course of one boy’s life. He hopes it will start a discussion that can alter the course for many more.
