Justin Tipping’s feature film directorial debut “Kicks,” opens in USA theaters today, September 6, 2016, via Focus World.

The film is a vibrant coming-of-age story bursting with magical realism, delivering an entertaining but sobering look at the realities of inner-city life, manhood, and sneaker culture, with a soundtrack that includes hip-hop classics hip-hop heads will love.

The drama follows 15-year-old Brandon, who longs for a pair of the freshest sneakers that money can buy, assuming that merely having them on his feet will help him escape the reality of being poor, ignored by girls, and routinely bullied by other. Working hard to get them, he soon finds that the shoes have instead made him a target after they are taken away from him by local thug Flaco, a man with complexities of his own that will be revealed when Brandon goes on a mission to retrieve his stolen sneakers with his two best friends along for the adventure.

The cast includes Jahking Guillory, starring as Brandon, as well as Christopher Meyer, CJ Wallace, Kofi Siriboe, and Mahershala Ali.

The script was penned by Joshua Beirne-Golden. David Kaplan is producer.

Movie review site Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an 81% rating with 16 reviews in as of the time of this post.

The film’s trailer is embedded below (for the second film opening this weekend, continue to page 2 at the link after the trailer):

Continue to page 2 at the link…

Also opening this weekend is Sony Pictures/Screen Gems psychological thriller, “When the Bough Breaks,” directed by Jon Cassar, from a screenplay penned by Jack Olsen and Karl Gajdusek.

Official synopsis reads: John and Laura Taylor (Morris Chestnut and Regina Hall) are a young, professional couple who desperately want a baby. After exhausting all other options, they finally hire Anna (Jaz Sinclair), the perfect woman to be their surrogate – but as she gets further along in her pregnancy, so too does her psychotic and dangerous fixation on the husband. The couple becomes caught up in Anna’s deadly game and must fight to regain control of their future before it’s too late.

“When the Bough Breaks” is produced by former New Line toppers, Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne, and executive produced by Screen Gems’ Glenn Gainor.

Valerie Bleth Sharp is co-producer and Brian Dukes is associate producer.

The movie wasn’t screened for critics ahead of its release today (which typically is a sign of zero or little confidence in the film by the studio distributing it); so there aren’t any Rotten Tomato reviews as of the time of this post.

Watch the new trailer below.