Dope starts off with a narrator (Forrest Whitaker) who introduces us to Macolm (Shameik Moore), a geeky black kid who’s obsessed with 90ies hip hop culture and who’s into ‘white shite like getting good grades and going to college’ and playing in a punk band with his friends friends, Jib (Tony Revolori) and Diggy (Kiersey Clemons). Not only does this result in having to deal with bullies at school, but Malcolm also has to survive in a crime-riddled neighborhood in Inglewood known as ‘The Bottoms’ while dealing with college applications and academic interviews.

In an extended prologue set in 1982, best friends Brenner and Cooper head off to the newly opened video arcade in town, where Brenner immediately excels at classic games such as Pac-Man, Centipede and Space Invaders. In fact, he’s so good he gets to participates in an arcade championship, only to come in second after losing a game of Donkey Kong to a guy called Eddie (Peter Dinklage). We then cut to present day where Cooper (Kevin James) is now the hugely unpopular president of the USA, while his buddy Brenner (Adam Sandler) wears an orange uniform and installs people’s TVs for a living.