WAIST DEEP — ** — Tyrese Gibson, Meagan Good, Larenz Tate; rated R (violence, profanity).

"Waist Deep" is a hip, hard genre picture that begins well but quickly gets in over its head. An old school L.A. "gangsta" film, it's about a "Clyde" who is suckered by a "Bonnie," only to team with her to try and free his son, who has been taken hostage after a carjacking she helped set up.

Otis, a k a "O2" (Tyrese Gibson) is pretty quick to forgive and forget. He forgives his punk cousin (Larenz Tate) for not picking up his sissy son at school. He forgives hot, hot Cocoa (Meagan Good) — she of the short, short skirts and the lips-that-won't-quit — for suckering him.

And he forgets all plot complications that actor-turned-writer/director Vondie Curtis Hall tosses into the mix, because Hall forgets them first.

There's a gang war going on. Big Meat (The Game) and the mysterious P. Money are going at it. Ineffectual protesters have taken to the streets over it, which is more than you can say for the film's disinterested cops.

O2, an ex-con who somehow can afford a cherry '65 Chevy convertible on his security-guard salary, loses the car and a kid in it. He's got to come up with a wad of cash to free the boy. His solution? Rob bad guys. Set one gang leader — with a thing for machetes — against the other.

There's a hint that Lucky (Tate) is in on this. Every "chop shop" they visit is filled with Chevys. Really, who in their right mind is stealing Chevys? In L.A.? And what was Cocoa's connection to the "master plan"?

Hall loses track of this in some pretty cool chases and fairly amusing robberies. Whatever maze he drives the plot into, whatever political statement he's slipping in the back door (the kid plays with buffalo-soldier dolls, the protesters are showboats, this is one gang alumnus who is determined to be a good father), he's more enamored of making a crowd-pleaser. After a breathless opening 20 minutes, his movie goes under and never gets its head back above water.

But Gibson, of "Baby Boy," "Annapolis" and "2 Fast 2 Furious," is superb in the action beats, a guy formerly "in the life" who has the skills to pull off break-ins, car-thefts and armed robbery. Good is a killer kitten in too-much lip gloss and death-defying heels.

And The Game, the latest rapper to journey to the screen, is a one-eyed wonder as the heavy, a vivid gang boss in a genre that has seen a lot of memorable baddies.

Hall panders to his audience, taking his 'hood rats onto Sunset Boulevard where they marvel at a city they've lived in, but never seen. They fantasize an escape to Mexico, and shack up in a swanky hillside mansion as they plot their next move. O2 suffers from oxygen deficiency up there. He forgets it's all about his kid.

As does the movie.

If Hall had limited this to the lean, urgent need to retrieve a lost son, he might have had something. Dad's lecture to Junior — "You've gotta be better than me when you grow up," was his message. Not "Let's steal a Chevy and get some payback."

"Waist Deep" is rated R for strong violence and pervasive language. Running time: 97 minutes.