In researching what critics have said about Boyz N The Hood for this review, I found that it is lauded for reasons (albeit deserved) that skirt the real core of why it is a successful film. Most critics talk about how the script perfectly and subtly set up the murder of Ricky (played with heart by a young Morris Chestnut...someone PLEASE give him a role that will set him on fire!) And how the film isn't manipulative and is grounded in full bodied character.
All true.
But Boyz N The Hood works because the environment of these characters and the nuances of what it means to be a black man (and a black woman) are so intricately woven into the story itself. This is why the characters are so rounded. And the complexities of black life itself are so assuredly a vital part of the story. It is important for the story that Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.) lives with his father Furious (Lawrence Fishbourne) because it is the event that triggers the narrative as well as Tre's growth as a character in that narrative.
But it also allows Singleton to explore the dynamics of what being a black man is like, supposed to be like, and also, rarely isn't. Furious wants Tre to be a good person, but he wants him to be a man. There is a wonderful scene between Fishbourne and Angela Bassett (as Tre's mother...foreshadowing both actors' brilliant chemistry later in What's Love Got To Do With It?) at a swanky restaurant. Bassett's character is now in a position to take care of Tre the way she's always wanted but Fishbourne's Furious says, in his own way, that she is too late. The scene is pivotal to understanding why Tre is the character he is. Tre is the sum of his parents. On one hand, he struggles to be the confident, strident man Furious is and wants the independence Furious only tests him with, but on the other he is a mama's boy who most likely only makes it because he is seen to be upwardly mobile.
Interestingly enough, I think it'd be wrong to assume that Tre is the real lead character. I think in a cautionary tale like this all three boys, Tre, Ricky and Doughboy (standout Ice Cube starting what would become the career in which he truly excels) are the leads. Tre is the nominal lead character only because Singleton is smart enough to realize that America would rather identify with this type of character and dramatically, it allows him to spend a longer amount of time drawing Ricky and Doughboy as characters.
So then, the most vital and perceptive moments in the film tend to revolve around Ricky and Doughboy and their mother played, with the kind of subtlety that people only think Bassett is capable of, by Tyra Ferrell. Ricky and Doughboy are the most complex figures in the film and Ferrell's character is the tool through which we, the audience, navigate their existence and discover them as characters throughout the movie. Doughboy is clearly the smartest, but Ricky is the athlete and Ferrell's favoring Ricky is a nice indictment and acknowledgment of black folks' aggressive insistence in entrenching our culture and hope in our athleticism. There is a key moment early on where Ferrell asks Gooding's Tre to "rub off" on Doughboy. Ferrell is great here because in her voice and manner we see there is love there for Doughboy and recognition of his potential, but ultimately, mostly just exhaustion. Right there we get a hint as to which one will survive because Singleton is determined to show that while athletic prowess may be our best bet, it isn't any kind of guarantee.
Nearly every actor knows their character. Fishbourne realizes that he is Singleton's voice to a great extent. He has the speeches and makes explicit what is implicit in the script. Many consider it overkill, but in every black community there is that one brother who is trying to motivate and inspire and he is the loudest, the baddest, and the one you do not mess with. Understanding Furious less as moral intention and more as a character is found in the sequence when someone breaks into his house. He shoots the gun, yes, but Singleton's close-up is brilliant because it allows us to see fear on Fishbourne's face not anger. As this sequence is early on in the film, Fishbourne and Singleton immediately set the tone for the film and call the audience on their assumptions of the angry gun-happy Black man. This is Furious' life, he has to defend it. He clearly doesn't enjoy it. It's also why he is so disgusted with the black police officer.
Ice Cube's work here is proof that for as good as rapper as he is, he is a better actor. In this role however, Singleton relies more on Cube's image than his acting to round the character out. Part of what made Ice Cube famous as a rapper is that all that (purported) anger was entrenched in a warmth and desire to see things change. That warmth, that teddy bear-like complexity is part of Doughboy too. He is the film's paradox. The only character who can call women “bitches” frequently and also pull off the hurt and incredulity of the scene where he and Ricky fight and his mother hits him and takes Ricky’s side almost instinctively. But it is more than the sensitive thug who needs love. Doughboy is an almost whimsically world-weary character. The final act is important to understanding Doughboy because he only gets truly violent as a reaction to the streets. Singleton's statement that gang violence and the death toll of young black men as a reaction to where society has placed them is embodied in Doughboy.
The females in the film are not wasted, they do what they can in a world where everyone is trying to be a man. Ferrell and Bassett offer the kind of performances that anchor movies but rarely get discussed or recognized by critics and moviegoers. Tre, Ricky, and Doughboy are children. As such the first place to look for them as characters is their mothers. These women are far more important then they may seem at first. As discussed before, they are the reason the three leads work. Nia Long and Regina King, as their younger counterparts are more problematic. They actively try to engage the men, but in many ways they are ill-equipped. King in particular has this way of turning bit parts and one-note characters into complex portrayals of womanhood. Here, she takes a no-name role and creates a wonderful portrait of the helpless ghetto vixen—content to roll with boys, but not content to allow them to totally mistreat her. Both these women are among our best and most consistently wasted black actresses.
And then there is Cuba Gooding Jr. Like Ice Cube, Singleton creates much of Tre by using Gooding's persona. Gooding is an overrated actor, but he isn't a bad one. Here, he is good in scenes with Fishbourne but lost in the world Singleton has created. It is never fully believable that he grew up in Compton and he isn't good enough an actor to fake it (which may be the only reason why his performance doesn't sink the movie) so he and Singleton flirt with the idea that he doesn't belong and is an outsider. It's not a bad performance but it is missing a crucial element. The anger that Desi Arnez Hines II, the child actor who plays Tre at age 10 in the prologue brings to his portrayal (and hinted at throughout the rest of the film) is never there in Gooding until Ricky is killed. Then he seethes believably, if not a bit over the top.
But like I said Tre is only the lead in so much as we see the film through his eyes. Singleton is smart not to rest the film on any one character and as such the film soars.
Boyz N The Hood is never depressing which is what makes it so great. There is humor and a slight tone of acceptance in the film. These are the lives these people live. But they aren't defeated. Neither female character played by Bassett or Farrell has truly given up (it is why the two scenes I mentioned that feature them are so crucial) but they both recognize that what is missing is a male presence and in Farrell's case there isn't one so her hands are tied.
Ricky dies because, dramatically, he is the hope of the film and the film carries more weight if the one character who seems least put upon by his surroundings is the one who is killed. Ricky was supposed to make it. He isn't the smartest, Singleton knows this, but he is what America will accept from such an environment. It is key that we don't know that Tre is taking the SATs until the camera pans over from Ricky. An association is made, yes, but more importantly the weight of such a test and a future is placed on Ricky not Tre. What is fascinating about this is that Singleton so assuredly relies on the audience to be following Tre so that he can do two very different things. One, set up the tragedy and two, indict society for setting up a world that would let a Doughboy fall through the cracks, a Tre be completely ignored and almost taken for granted, and a Ricky to be the beacon of hope.
DVDS. Director {$John Singleton's} debut chronicles the trials and tribulations of three young African-American males growing up in South Central Los ...More at DeepDiscount.com
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