Menace II Society (1993)
Directed by Allen Hughes
A young street hustler attempts to escape the rigors and temptations of the ghetto in a quest for a better life.
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What critics compared Menace II Society to
The film includes numerous references to early 1990s gangsta movies like Boyz N the Hood and Menace II Society , but in spirit it’s closer to Risky Business and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , 1980s comedies about white teenage boys who go through a crazy adventure in a compressed time frame.
It pays homage to such early '90s hits as "Menace II Society," "Boyz N the Hood" and "Juice," but also strives to upend the stereotypes and tropes of those films.
The story’s lead trio of misfit friends are “deeply obsessed with ’90s hip-hop,” yet “Dope” owes more to such white-cast teen movies as “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “The Breakfast Club” than to such later, grimmer, youth-skewing “urban” films as “Boyz n the Hood” and “Menace II Society.”
Early ’90s African-American coming-of-age dramas like Boyz n the Hood and Menace II Society turned inner city LA into a frightening jungle of predators and teenage victims, while a film like Friday conversely offered a ’90s LA coming-of-age story that managed to transform “the hood” into a ripe comedic landscape.
Yet the force of this haunting allegory from Albert and Allen Hughes (Menace II Society, From Hell) is its argument that spiritual sustenance may be more critical for survival than the comestible sort.
From the opening titles, it’s clear that the Hughes Brothers have matured since their camera-trick heavy years with Menace II Society and Dead Presidents, putting forth a more meditative effort with Book of Eli, which deals with spirituality and cold-blooded survival in a bleak post-apocalyptic world of raw desperation.
The movie also moves along at a fairly decent clip, thanks to its directors, the brothers Albert and Allen Hughes ("Menace II Society," "Dead Presidents," "From Hell").
The codirectors, twin brothers Allen and Albert Hughes , are best known for such blunderbusses as “ Menace II Society ” and the Johnny Depp -starring Jack the Ripper shocker “ From Hell ,” and here they appear to be extending their reach into the realms of kung fu.
…here’s a joke somewhere in the fact that the Hughes brothers’ first film in nine years takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but while the sibling directors don’t exactly have the best track record in town (their only hit remains their 1993 debut, “Menace II Society”), “The Book of Eli” will still find an audience thanks to the involvement of Denzel Washington .
Although it earns its R rating in nearly every scene, the film’s vibe is closer to “The Social Network” than “Menace II Society,” choosing to romanticize the merits of the music and the relation between art and commerce, not the violence that was interconnected with the group’s rise and fall.
Let me say right now that the Hughes brothers are major filmmakers; their work evinces a visual dazzle and dark emotional resonance that owes more to the Martin Scorsese of Mean Streets than to the John Singleton of Boyz N the Hood.
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Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996)
Directed by Paris Barclay
Plot
Like most of their earlier work on TV ("In Living Color") and later work for the screen ("Scary Movie," "White Chicks"), "Don't Be a Menace" is a spoof, and a fairly unsubtle one, of films like "Menace II Society," "South Central," "Juice," and "Boyz n in the Hood."
To understand most of its references, you should know, for example, John Singleton's "Boyz N the Hood" and "Poetic Justice," the Hughes brothers' "Menace II Society," Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" and "Jungle Fever" and at least one music video by Dr. Dre or Snoop Doggy Dogg.
Unlike "Boyz N the Hood" and "Juice," however, this one is so downbeat and depressing there seems to be little hope for anyone who comes out of these neighborhoods.
Let me say right now that the Hughes brothers are major filmmakers; their work evinces a visual dazzle and dark emotional resonance that owes more to the Martin Scorsese of Mean Streets than to the John Singleton of Boyz N the Hood.
If " Boyz N the Hood " was the story of a young man lucky enough to grow up with parents who cared, and who escapes the dangers of the street culture, "Menace II Society" is, tragically, about many more young men who are not so lucky.
The Hughes Brothers followed up their excellent debut, 1993's searing Menace II Society, with this ambitious, uneven, but nonetheless entertaining urban drama.
Set in the mid-'90s, the film takes place in the sort of crime-ravaged Southern California war zones immortalized in NWA's music and movies like Menace II Society.
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Don't expect gory bloodbaths and gratuitous violence a la Menace II Society or Boyz N' the Hood.
…an absolutely bizarre scene that, while rooted in an actual occurrence, feels like a children’s author adapting Menace II Society…