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rating: (out of 4 stars)

'Boyz N the Hood' is a realistic look into the lives of young black men living in the inner cities in America. The neighborhood chosen for this movie is South Central, Los Angeles. We follow Tré (Cuba Gooding Jr.) who once lived with his mother but is send to live with his father because he needs to learn stuff his mother thinks she can not teach him. His father Furious (Laurence Fishburne) is a disciplined man, always looking angry or disappointed because young black men shoot each other over almost nothing, and indeed he teaches Tré to stay out of trouble.

Tré has to very good friends. One of them is Ricky (Morris Chestnut) who lives across the street. He is a good guy, heading for college because he knows how to play football very well. The other good friend is Doughboy (Ice Cube), Ricky's half-brother, who lives in the same house across the street. Doughboy is not really a bad teenager but he is the kind of guy that attracts trouble because he does the wrong things at the wrong moment. He has no real goal in life and all he does is drink and hang out with friends. Ricky and Doughboy's mother (Tyra Ferrell) makes no secret of it that she likes Ricky, who has a girl with a kid, much better than Doughboy.

We see the lives of these characters and some other friends and girlfriends. The movie opens with saying that out of 21 black men will be murdered, most of the time by another black men. Since it opens with this statement the only thing we know is that a black men will die in this movie, probably by another black men. But who will it be? The movie shows us that living in the hood is not about making the right choices, although it might help, but simply about surviving. We see how a police helicopter constantly flies over the neighborhood, constantly reminding us that this is a place that could be dangerous the entire time.

The movie is powerful, although I think it is a little less powerful than 'Menace II Society', released two years later. It shows less violence than that movie and when it does show violence it seems more nuanced, although basically the same things happen in both movies. It is just that John Singleton, first time director, chooses to focus on the characters and their lives and makes the violence as something that just happens, where 'Menace II Society' wanted graphic images of the violence. Of course 'Menace' was also focusing on the lives of characters but the difference between good and bad was a lot more clear, therefore the movie felt different and more violent to begin with. I think for this movie Singleton has made the right choice. The violence is just there and to say there is a good or bad side is not really the issue in this movie.

The movie shows us what happens in the inner city and we must believe that this is the case. The movie has points where things could go wrong but it does not. There are a couple of scenes very obviously taken from Rob Reiner's 'Stand by Me' and if they would play a little longer than now it could have gone wrong. Fortunately Singleton knows when he has to leave the scenes taken from the other movie to focus on his own movie again. Other things that could have gone wrong are the performances, but they are just right. Cuba Gooding Jr. and Laurence Fishburne, the two best known actors in leading roles, play their parts as men who live in the inner city as this moment. In their eyes you see the hard times they have with making the right choices. Morris Chestnut in his first feature film has his best and only mentionable performance here. The best thing is rapper Ice Cube, one of the few rappers who knows how to act. He has shown that in other movies like 'Three Kings' and here, also in his feature film debut, he gives a memorable performance. This is a movie not to be missed.