Right back to the film reviews, as I haven't posted up a review on this blog for a wee while, so I thought I would do one on John Singleton's debut film, the critically acclaimed Boyz n the hood, which focuses on the lives of three young men in South Central Los Angeles. So let's have a look...
So starting with the plottery, the film starts in 1984 in South Central LA, where the main character Tre Styles (as a child played by Desi Arnez Hines II) a 10 year old boy get's into a fight in school, and he is sent home by his teacher. The teacher calls Tre's mother, Reva (Angela Bassett) who tells her that he is an intelligent boy, but lacks respect towards his classmates and has a bad temper. Reva tells the teacher that she plans on taking Tre to live with his father, Furious Styles (Laurence Fishburne) to learn lessons on life and responsibility. The day Tre arrives at Furious's house, a burglar breaks in at night, but Furious scares him off by firing his gun.
The next day Tre meets up with his neighbourhood friends, Darrin "Doughboy" Baker and his half brother, Ricky. The three of them go with their friend, Little Chris for a walk, where they soon find a dead body in the grass. On finding the body a nearby gang approaches them, and one young aggressive gang member asks for Ricky's baseball (which was given to him by his father (now divorced from his mother) who reluctantly gives him the ball. Angry at his brother's gullable and naive nature, Doughboy demands the gang member give Ricky's ball back, but the young gangbanger punches and kicks him to the ground. Eventually one of the other gang members gives the ball back to Ricky, when he sees his sadness when the ball taken away. After returning home from a fishing trip with Furious, Tre sees Doughboy and Little Chris being lead away by police officers, as they were arrested for stealing from a local store.
The film then moves on to seven years later in 1991, where now a "welcome home" party is being held for Doughboy (Ice Cube, as an adult) by the Baker family. By this time, Doughboy has just being released from prison, and has lost alot of weight from when we see him as a child, and he plays dominos with his friends, Chris (Redge Green), now in a wheelchair, and Dookie (Dedrick D. Gorbet) and Monster. Ricky now 17 years old, plays baseball for his high school and does really well in his team, and he also has a girlfriend Shanice (Alysia Rodgers) as well as young baby son. Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr) also 17 years old at this time, has a girlfriend, Brandi (Tyra Ferrell) whom he has a rather tense relationship with. After the party, Tre takes home some food from the party for Tre, and on the way he is nearly accosted by a gang of Bloods, who point a shotgun at him, but they laugh at him as he stands his ground and drive off. After this life carries on in the neighbourhood.
One night Ricky is paid a visit by a man from USC (University of Southern California) as he hopes to gain a scholarship to get into the University, but he must take an SAT test and score 700 or over in order to be eligible. On the day of the SAT test, Tre and Ricky pay a visit to Furious at his work, where he takes them on a drive out to Compton and gives them a talk on "gentrification" and how outside companies want to bring the property value of the area down, and in the hope of the poor residents will be forced to leave their property, where after the property value will go up and companies can make a profit. Tre also talks of why there is a liquor store and a gunstore on every corner in their communities, and its because they want us to kill ourselves, and of the young locals that gather around Furious asks them "to think about their future".
After this Tre and Ricky catch up with Doughboy and the others at a street race gathering on Crenshaw, where Ricky is provoked by the Blood gang leader, Ferris (Raymond Turner). Doughboy steps in and defends Ricky, showing him his gun, the Blood gang back down, but soon Ferris scares them off by firing his uzi, as people flee. Tre and Ricky are soon pulled over by two police officers and one of them, is the cop earlier in the film, who pulls a gun on Tre to scare him, but let's him go. Tre goes back to Brandi's house and breaks down in tears, frustrated at his situation, but Brandi comforts him and they have sex for the first time. The next day however things take place in the hood for Tre, Doughboy, Furious and Ricky that will have a drastic change on their lives.....
(PLOT STUFF OVER!)
Boyz n the hood was similar in tone to Spike Lee's Do the right thing, although that was more about racial tension between ethnic races in New York City, this film was far more an examination on how peoples lives were affected by the crime and gang life in South Central LA. And John Singleton perfectly captures that dramatic tone of what life must have been like in LA at that time in those neighbourhoods where danger lurked anywhere nearby, and any person could end up being shot by a gang member for no reason or even as simple a one as a single insult. Clearly also this was a very personal film for Singleton and growing up in those neighbourhood's his emotions and feelings are made quite clear, particularly in the scene where you see Tre break down in tears in sheer anger and frustration at all the crime, the gangs and shit in the neighbourhood, and how he was so desparate to escape it all.
Performance wise the film is universally strong (to coin a phrase) with Cuba Gooding Jr giving an excellent performance as Tre Styles, who through his father, becomes a responsible and good natured young guy, despite his somewhat petty games he plays with his girlfriend Brandi. Ice Cube is also great as Doughboy, and he get's pretty much all the best lines in the film where he spouts out his own crude and profane philosophies on life, especially in the scene where he says to his friends "if God was a bitch, there would be no bombs, no guns, no war, because these things aren't in a bitch's nature!". I also love the line where he says to Tre about how he can't believe how young Ricky has become a father "this motherfucker has got babies, in-house pussy, and all that!". And also the line at his homecoming party where all the guys butt in ahead of the girls when the food is served and he says "lady the ladies eat first, hos gotta eat too!". But Ice Cube not only get's to deliver some sassy crass lines, he also does deliver a great dramatic performance as well, particularly in the scene where he kills Ferris, gaining revenge for Ricky's death, you would expect him to be suddenly very righteous but instead his expressions changes from rage to a look of loss, in that moment realising while he had to kill him, its changed his whole life but not made anything better. And Ice Cube reflects this as Doughboy in the line where he says to Tre "I don't know how I feel about it either, man. This shit just keeps goin on and on".
Laurence Fishburne is terrific as Furious as well, and he pretty much steals the film in the scenes he features in. His scene where he confronts Tre about trying to get revenge for Ricky's death by taking his gun is a real highlight, where he convinces Tre to give him the gun, who breaks down crying and he hugs him saying "you're my only son and I'm not going to lose you to any bullshit, you hear?". Fishburne plays Furious as a responsible and honoruable man, and he is also probably about the only decent true father in his neighbourhood, and he does his part to turn Tre into a man. Fishburne other main highlight scene is when he takes Tre and Ricky to Comptom and talks to them about gentrification on how they need to think about their future. He also has a great moment in the film where he gives a look of contempt to the black police officer who taunted him for not killing the burglar, and the police man says "something wrong???", and Furious replies "something wrong??? Yeah! Its just too bad you don't know what it is..... brother!".
Of the supporting cast Morris Chesnut also gives a fine performance as the young, naive and trusting Ricky, who is a promising young baseball high school star on the rise, with a bright future ahead of him, only to have it all taken away from him in the blink of an eye. Angela Bassett also gives an excellent performance as Reva, Tre's mother, and she has a funny scene with him Tre when she calls him up, and Tre is on the lines to his girlfriend Brandi, but he thinks he is still talking to Brandi and says "so you gonna let me give you the skins or what???" and Reva says sharply "Tre, this is your mother!". Bassett's scene with Fishburne is also very good and its clear they had a really good on screen chemistry, which pretty much influenced their casting in the Tina Turner biopic, What's love got to do with it? Tyra Ferrell is also good as Tre's girlfriend, Brandi, and she get's to share a great moment with Tre in the scene where he breaks down in tears, and he says "I never thought I would be crying in front of a female" and she says quitely "you can cry infront of me" which for me ranks as one of modern cinema's most quietly sexy and intimate moments (no really!).
Regina King, who went on to do quite well for herself in movies after this (notably in Jerry Maguire, Enemy of the States to name a couple) makes a notable impression here as well, and she provides some funny moments, as Shalika, Doughboy's girlfriend. King has a funny scene with Ice Cube when he says to her "Hos gotta eat too" and she says "wait a minute, nigga, I ain't no ho" and he says "oh, I'm sorry bitch!". And finally Dedrick D Gobert as Dookie, despite the fact he wasn't an actor, also gives an amusing performance, one of Doughboy's doped up gang members. Gobert in real life was later killed in 1994 as a result of an argument during a drag race where he defended his girlfriend and he was shot dead. Gobert also provides some of the film's amusing moments especially during the homecoming party scene where he is duped into thinking that he can get AIDS from having oral sex, and he says "can you really catch that shit from letting them suck on your dick???" and Doughboy replies "mark!" (meaning he is basically a sucker, or an easy target for wind ups).
Flaw wise the film doesn't really have many, the only things that kind of niggled me a little bit were some of the cheesy early 90s pop songs and synth tracks they use in the background in some shots, particularly when Ricky puts on the video of his baseball game. But for me the biggest niggle or flaw, if you want to call it that is in Furious's age, as he says he went to fight in the Vietnam war, however if you look at how old he is in the film, in 1984 he is 27, and of course he's 34 in 1991. Now given his age from that, he would have been born in 1957, and the Vietnam war ended in 1975, which would have meant he would have probably been or was about to turn 18 when it ended. But apparently the age a person could join the military at to go to Vietnam at that point was generally 18 years of age. So for me I think that Furious wouldn't have been old enough to have been in the Vietnam war, and that Singleton might have gotten the timeline wrong for Furious's age. But then again what do I know???? But its just a thought I've always had about the film.
Singleton direction wise does a superb job here and he keeps the pace of the film moving at a nice pace, and he also more importantly provides some really powerful dramatic moments in the film. He also even makes a small cameo appearance in the film toward the end, as the postman who delivers Ricky's SAT score results. And last but not least I thought I would mention the film's excellent score by Stanley Clarke, which provides a great deal of atmosphere to the setting of the film.
So that's it for my very exhaustive review of Boyz n the hood, which to this day remains as relevant as ever, and a very powerful, dramatic and moving film, which if you haven't already seen then you should definitely give it a go.
And so I will leave it there!
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