John Singleton's Boyz 'n the Hood is a first film that shows a lot of promise, despite its faults. It succeeds in immersing the audience in the South Central LA ambience of urban black culture with a surprising realism in dialogue and
setting, as only one who knows the environment first hand can do. But once this is accomplished the story turns more Hollywood, and what initially impressed becomes slightly phoney and clichTd.
Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.), is a bright youth with a lot of promise who starts to get sucked into the urban street gang scene. His mother (Angela Basset) sends him to live with his father (Lawrence Fishburne), who tries to inculcate responsibility in him with tough love. He becomes friends with Ricky (Morris Chestnut), a budding football star, and Doughboy, played by Ice Cube, who lends the film a gritty authenticity with his role as a gangster.
Using the rather hackeyed device of a title that reads "Seven Years Later", we fast-forward to the boys as young men. The gun violence endemic in the Hood threatens Tre's college career, and Ricky's hope of a football scholarship ends with him in a pool of blood in a back alley, the victim of a drive-by shooting from a local gang. Doughboy seals his fate as a gang-banger by killing Ricky's assailants, as Tre jumps out of the car at the last minute to save himself and his future.
There is much to praise here, but the lack of mature judgement is also apparent. On the plus side, the real locations, the dress, the dialogue, and the individual mannerisms (one of the buddies always sucks a pacifier; Doughboy is never without his bottle of pop) give us a believable context for the story. Singleton shows a real talent for directing actors, who are mostly unselfconscious before the camera, especially in the scenes with children. The constant background audio of police choppers, sirens, crying babies, rap music, and gunfire also lend the film an ominous sense of vague opres...