Review: Stick ‘Em Up

To call Stick ‘Em Up a quintessential Houston documentary is both a compliment and a critique. It represents praise because the film does what it sets out to do very well: document and celebrate the thriving wheatpaste street art movement in Houston, TX. On the other hand, it is a criticism because unlike its more popular predecessor Exit Through the Gift Shop (Paranoid Pictures 2010), Stick ‘Em Up makes no attempt to connect the Houston street art scene to anything outside itself – commerce, politics, or the larger global street art movement. Instead, the film focuses so exclusively on the local that it obfuscates much of the revolutionary history and potential of street art, boiling it down to a series of choices made by individuals, apparently driven only by their craft.