santiagocosme Black kids in their neighborhood, having absolutely no purpose in life except for hanging out and getting in all sorts of trouble. The movie isn't necessarily bad even though it feels a little cliché. But you don't get too many surprises. Shootings to starts proceedings, more deaths and fights in the middle, and as you can imagine, a few killings at the end. Menace to society doesn't manage to be a great movie because it does not bring anything in addition to flicks likes boys in the hood, or movies of the sort. It is interesting that I saw "Menace to Society" a few days before "Notorious". It certainly helped to build things up and to feel more connected to the theme of the movie: the lives of teenagers that suffer the social inequalities of the country they live in. But apart from the good intention of the director, the movie fails to be anything memorable.

Nicole C The film starts off with the murders at a convenience story, and introduces the voice-over narration of the story. I find that this voice-over does wonders at making the audience sympathize with Caine's character. He was born into this society, and therefore is not to blame for his actions and choices. Though his character is not as unpredictably violent like O-Dog, and is somewhat mild. He doesn't carry a gun, and his demeanour isn't that menacing. The voice-over helps to gain some insight into his thoughts and is thus more humanized.Tyrin Turner does a great job portraying his character. As a young boy on the edge of adulthood and just out of high school, Caine has no direction in life, and even has trouble answering whether he cares if he lives or dies. The many close-ups show his confusion at times and at others, his indifference to violence, implying his slow immersion into becoming like O-Dog. O-Dog is represented as a bit of a psychopath with no remorse or conscience for life. It takes little to set him off and Tate does a fantastic job of portraying this terrifying character.This film is well made and the directing shows it. The Hughes Brothers perfectly place juxtapositions of scenes together for maximum impact. The flashback comes in the beginning and establishes Caine's back story while creating sympathy for him. The composition of shots too are done nicely, and complements the way the characters tend to travel in groups.There is a lot of violence in this though, and it serves to show a realistic representation but can be very brutal. As mentioned before, it takes very little to upset O-Dog and turn him loose. The swearing is also very apparent and not one sentence goes by without them. Sometimes whole conversations go by with just cursing.Overall a very powerful representation of ghetto society, where importance is on staying together and protecting one's own. Masculinity is also obviously a very big issue as they constantly try to assert themselves through aggression and cursing. Read more movie reviews at: championangels.wordpress.com

bob the moo I can't remember the details but there was a period where, in the wake of Reservoir Dogs, Menace II Society was prevented from getting a certificate in the UK and was essentially banned amid a storm of hand-wringing and worry over violence in films. It was the mid-90's where I finally got to see the film on a really bad VHS with the tracking all over the place – but since then I don't think I had watched it till this weekend. It is quite hard to believe that the film was once subject to controversy; not only is it reasonably tame compared to modern standards, but it is also pretty "realistic" and doesn't fetishize or glamorize the violence (as opposed to the modern torture porn genre for example). It is additionally confusing when one looks back onto a film that is about as morally-sound and positive as you could hope – pretty much to a fault actually.The plot sees Caine getting drawn into violence and ultimately we all know where this is heading from the start because the film is from a certain period and a certain genre. Watching it again it is disappointing that so much of the film seems clichéd and rather obvious in terms of the dialogue, but maybe this is because it has been done so often since, it is hard to say in retrospect, but for sure the film does feel very "obvious" across the telling. This doesn't make it a bad film though – just perhaps a little clumsier than I would have liked. The delivery is still impacting though and the film does well to create a sense of characters with no future but death or jail; there are moments of relaxing and family, moments of joking around and moments of violence – the film does well to make them all just seem like part of life here. Yes the plot goes where you expect but it is still hard to watch and hard to stomach.The cast are better than the names would suggest. In particular Turner does better than I expected – he cannot make the overly earnest narration work, but he does deliver a good character. Tate has things simpler and is only OK; I found him a bit too slick to be the character he was playing. The support cast features some faces (Jackson, Duke, Smith and a few rappers of note) but generally the cast are unknown and pretty natural – it is only when they have to deliver some clunky lines that they struggle ("man enough to take a live but not to raise one" being an example).Menace II Society stuck in my mind because of the controversy surrounding it in the UK, but watching it now it just seems tame and fairly "normal". Part of this is the film convincing the viewer of this world but it is also down to the fact that the film is actually quite morally simple and obvious. It does still have an impact and it is a culturally important film, but for sure it has its flaws and there are better films from the period tackling the same issues but better.

Spikeopath The directorial debut of twin brothers Albert and Allen Hughes, Menace II Society is a tough, no nonsense look at youthful black life in the Watts section of Los Angeles. The Hughes Brother's movie charts the hapless life of Caine (Tyrin Turner) as he seeks to escape the ghetto. The son of both a drug dealer (Samuel L. Jackson in a potent appearance) and an addict, Tyrin, surrounded by guns and a machismo culture, is tied to his friends and the way of life afforded him. Even as love and a chance of a way out arises with Jada Pinkett's (terrific) pretty Ronnie, it's doubtful if Tyrin will escape from the revolving door of death.Menace II Society had a troubled beginning, refused a video certificate on the grounds of its profane language and brutally violent scenes, it has since gone on to be viewed as one of the finer exponents of anti-violence involving Black Americans. That wasn't always the case though, many critics in the 90s were prone to calling it a film that glamorises the lifestyle of "Hood" gangsters, but offered a saver of sorts by correctly saying it had realism in amongst the harshness. Certainly the dialogue and regional slang was refreshing to hear, thus affording "Menace" and its makers praise for keeping it real, so to speak.Ineviatbly comparisons were (are) drawn with John Singleton's 1991 film, Boyz n the Hood. But although "Menace" is rawer, uncompromising and more visceral with impact, it lacks the intelligence of Singleton's film. Where "Boyz" had fully rounded characters, character with which to hang your hat on to, "Menace" is just a social group of youths we neither know or care about outside of the group, ego driven dynamic. When lead protagonist Tyrin is trying to deal with his inner conflict, we the audience are treated to standard run of the mill melodrama. The streetwise edginess that the Hughes' began their film with (the opening is nigh on horrific) has long since gone as they try to make a film that touches all the bases of Black Americana.Easily the most realistic of all the ghetto films made, in fact the film at times feels like we are on a documentary drive around downtown Watts. Menace II Society, however brutal it clearly is, has loaded the gun and shot the bullet, only to see it narrowly miss the whole target it was aiming for. Still it's one hell of an experience though. 8/10