MENACE II SOCIETY (1993)

Bleak, brilliant, and unsparing: a full-scale vision of the madness that is tearing up the black inner city. Set in the Watts district of L.A., this cataclysmic first feature by the Hughes brothers develops as a series of vivid, documentary-like anecdotes, each ending with a deathly fade to black. As Caine (Tyrin Turner), the wayward hero, and his homeboy crew engage in a variety of felonies, their talk a hostile crossfire of profanity, one begins to hear the will to violence encoded in their very language. The film suggests that, far from just hating the white man, the new generation of young urban blacks have begun, in an almost systematized way, to hate one another. The Hughes brothers offer little way out of this hellish demimonde. Yet the brutal honesty of their vision can serve as a cathartic wake-up call to the audience.

You Might Also Like

• Movie Review MENACE II SOCIETY (1993) | Owen Gleiberman
• Video Review MENACE II SOCIETY | Steve Daly
• Pop Culture News LITTLE MIRACLES | Meredith Berkman
• Movie Commentary ''Dead Presidents'' is one of the best movies about the veteran experience (1995)
• Movie Review The Inkwell (1994) | Lisa Schwarzbaum
• The Deal Report Developments on the Che Guevara biopic | Adam B. Vary