Movies like this raise the question of whether movies are most important as arts of work on their own terms or as social statements made to have an impact on the world. Just by habit, I tend to lean towards the first view, and I would guess that most filmmakers do as well, since directors generally seem wary of discussing their work in terms of messages. But obviously not John Singleton; in the very first shot of Boyz n the Hood, the camera pushes towards a stop sign until it looms over the audience. This image sets the mood for the rest of the film, which has a strong impact that, as contradictory as this might seem, is somewhat blunted by the lack of subtlety. It belongs to that group of movies that probably stem most directly from Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, a film that showed how talented young directors could make a splash with a debut set on their own home turf, particularly home turf far removed from the mainstream of American society. Not that Boyz n the Hood is anywhere as good as Mean Streets, but then I don't think that Singleton's main goal is to top Scorsese: he has a point to make. It's about the poverty and violence infesting South-Central L.A., with three main characters representing the basic options available to a young black man from that background. Cuba Gooding Jr. plays Tre, whose father, Furious Styles (Laurence Fishburne) is determined to raise him with the self-respect and discipline to avoid a life of crime and violence. His friend Ricky Baker (Morris Chestnut) isn't as smart but hopes to get into college on an athletic scholarship. Doughboy, meanwhile, is already immersed in gang life. The main performances are strong, particularly from Ice Cube, whose character is in man ways the most interesting, possessing the self-awareness his life is headed nowhere but not the will to do anything about it. At his strongest, Singleton creates a powerful, bleak portrait of a community under siege from guns, drugs, poverty, and general hopelessness, and he immerses you in this world as well, so that you share with the characters the same sense that all of the exits have been closed off. Whether or not you agree with all of the specific points that Singleton is trying to make, Boyz is unquestionably strong as a statement and a piece of reporting. It's far from a great piece of film-making; the music is intrusive and poorly done, and the story is overly melodramatic- it's not enough that one character has to be murdered to show the tragedy of gang violence, his friends then have to dump his bloody corpse in his living room so that we can see his mother's and his girlfriend's hysterical grief. But melodrama isn't really the main problem; it's more that Singleton's determination to get his message across frequently overwhelms his determination to tell a good story with believably individual characters. Too often the characters seem to be speaking to the audience instead of each other, sometimes to the extent that I expected them to turn towards the camera and issue a final warning. But for all of my criticisms of the movie, in the end I'm not sure how much they mean, because Singleton's focus, as I've already said, really doesn't seem to be on creating great art. If the success of a film is to be measured by whether it accomplishes what it sets out to do, rather than by one's enjoyment of it, than I think Boyz n the Hood would have to rate as a solid achievement.
Review of Boyz n the Hood
