"Boyz N The Hood" (1991)

The trailer for GTA5 was just released not so long ago.  So I decided to celebrate this by watching a movie that influenced Rockstar when they made San Andreas, my favourite game from the series. So I’ll be watching “Boyz N the Hood” today, and hopefully “Menace II Society” at a future date. Thankfully, the two movies are different enough to offer variety. And this is Cuba Gooding Jr.’s debut movie, so it’ll be nice to see how he performs on the big stage for the first time.

After getting into a fight at school, Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.) agrees to move in with his dad. This is when he rejoins with his old friends; Ricky (Morris Chestnut) and his half-brother Darren “Doughboy” (Ice Cube). Ricky’s trying to chase down a scholarship for his football skills and Doughboy’s fallen into the trap of gang banging and drugs. Tre’s the fortunate one with a father (Lauren Fishburne) who is teaching him the true values of life. We watch the three grow up, all in their own different paths.

The two make a great father/son duo

I’ve seen enough of these “from the ‘hood” movies in my time, add that to the fact that I’ve lived in a Suburb for most of my life, this makes me an expert of ghetto life. And that is why I can say that this movie felt real to me. All the characters have their own flaws, making them all too believable. For example, Tre is smarter than most of his peers and early on his teachers and parents know that Tre can amount to something. But he slowly succumbs to violence when he can’t handle his temper. Tre knows the ‘hood he lives in is terrible and he wants to escape the violence and drugs that roams his streets. But like many of us, he goes day to day without trying to change the fact.

Best friends through thick and thin.

Of course the acting was good, it had to be. If the acting was even average, the movie would have been easily put to the side as another glorified L.A. gangster movie. Now the big surprise was Ice Cube, the last movie I saw him in was “xXx 2: The Next Level”, and that movie was not flattering. But in here, Ice Cube was as great as everyone else on selling his roll. And because the characters had their major flaws, acting out these flaws, not just over exaggerating them, made the characters feel real. This goes to all the actors, I can't say that one was better than the other.

 And the story wasn’t just some hyped up shoot ‘em up tale. There were actual plot lines that dove into the problems of living up in L.A. The movie shows the different factions of people in gangs, people just trying to make a living and others trying to change how their neighbourhood ran. There are no real heroes in this movie, nor are there any evil doers. It’s just shows the reasons why these people do what they do. But it all boils down to some sort of pride, be it for family, friends or representing their gang.

Ice Cube brings the attitude that is needed in this all to real film.

The movie is polished in the sense the acting is great, the movie looks great and the script is vulgar but what you would expect. But what isn’t polished in the way the characters and story are told out to be. Which in this movie is a great thing, I wanted the movie to feel gritty and raw, and not some polished up flick. I really liked this movie for what it delivers, shows to me what kind of world L.A was in the 90’s when you drive past the Hollywood signs and into Compton. Sure it wasn’t the San Andreas experience I was looking for, but there were bits that are similar. And overall a great movie by any standards.