It was hardly a scene from a Hollywood movie opening, but the world premiere of Snipes had its fair amount of St. Louis flair. For one, local rap sensation and Snipes star Nelly was on hand for the event, indulging fans and journalists who gathered outside of the Esquire on Tuesday night.

Though it was a world premiere, Nelly kept the evening low-key, eschewing a limousine for one of his many sporty vehicles. As usual, he was stylishly underdressed in a t-shirt and precious little in the way of “bling-bling” apparel.

Besides Nelly and his entourage, St. Louis songbird Toya, Snipes director Rich Murray and St. Louis Rams players Marshall Faulk and Trung Candidate found their way down the red carpet. To be fair, the carpet sections were mismatched tones of burgundy and the velvet rope was replaced by yellow police tape, but the excitement that Nelly generated helped make it feel like a star-studded gathering.

The prospect of Nelly making a movie is a curious one. Consider the distinguished cavalcade of hip-hop artists to dabble in film: Kid ‘N Play had the visionary zeal to make not one but three variations of their flick House Party; Ice Cube addressed the social and ethical effects of marijuana in Friday; and Vanilla Ice taught us all about love and motorcycles in the seminal film Cool As Ice.

So Nelly took some time off from praising his favorite area code (‘314 fo sho!”) to make himself a movie. In Snipes, Nelly plays Prolifik, a former drug dealer who has become rap’s hottest commodity. Before you scream “typecasting!” picture the film’s first scene: our man is driving around in an SUV with his pals, smoking a spliff. OK, so maybe it isn’t so out of character, but Nelly and Prolifik’s mutual love of rap, weed and the St. Louis Cardinals are where the similarities end.

The film’s main plot revolves around young Erik Triggs (Sam Jones III), a Philadelphia teen who goes truant to illegally put up promotional posters (known as “sniping”) for his hero Prolifik and his record label Ill Wax. The young man drives around town in a Mystery Machine-like van emblazoned with Prolifik’s name and visage, which adds some unintended hilarity in scenes where Triggs is trying to be covert.

Ill Wax’s head is reprehensible bastard-man Bobby Starr (who came up with these names? Was “Jimmy Glitter” already taken?), played by Dean Winters. Winters has all the intimidation of a young Eric Stoltz and, though he has the film’s most foul mouth, supplies the most boring string of curses ever committed to tape. If you’re going to spend the whole picture slinging four-letter epithets, at least make them good ones.

Anyway, Starr is pushing Prolifik for his debut album, which is sure to burn up the charts. To escape his shady contract, Prolifik and his chronic-loving cronies stage a kidnapping heist in which Triggs (dubbed Snipes by Prolifik) has become ensnared.

The rest of the film consists of Snipes trying to avoid peril at the hands of either Starr or the kidnapping homies. One of the best scenes involves a bound Snipes being interrogated by a knife-brandishing Starr who recounts some of his favorite knife-maiming scenes from cinema. Let’s just say that he threatens Snipes with the Reservoir Dogs routine but opts for the Chinatown treatment.

In the end, Prolifik is exposed as a phony, the rap industry is found to be full of bloodthirsty hustlers and nearly everyone ends up dead. Snipes touches upon some of the evils of the music business, but it is too highly fictionalized to be taken seriously. It is primarily a mildly-suspenseful thriller with a rap soundtrack.

So where is Nelly in all of this mayhem? Mostly offscreen, as he spends no more than 10 minutes on screen in his starring role. And that seems like the right amount of time–his acting is decent enough, but most of his dialogue is garbled and his character is rather one-dimensional. It’s mostly a lot of shouting, shooting or just looking hard. He’s pretty good at all three, too.

This movie certainly could have been a lot worse, and though most of the acting and dialogue stumbles, it is enjoyable enough. Nelly seems to know where his true talent is, so minor sojourns into acting aren’t really hurting anyone.