Menace II Society (1993)
Genre: Crime / Drama
Duration: 97 minuten
Country:
United States
Directed by: Albert Hughes and Allen Hughes
Stars: Tyrin Turner, Larenz Tate and Samuel L. Jackson
IMDb score:
7,5 (71.390)
Releasedate: 26 May 1993
Menace II Society plot
"This is the truth. This is what's real."
Young Caine Lawson grew up in the slums of Los Angeles. He becomes increasingly involved in crime through his friend O-Dog. Against his will he gets deeper and deeper into a vicious circle of violence and crime. However, his friend Ronnie and her son Anthony make him realize that he wants to escape this life.
Actors and actresses
Caine 'Kaydee' Lawson
Kevin 'O-Dog'
Pernell
Ronnie
Tat Lawson
Grocery Store Woman
Grocery Store Man
Clyde
Karen Lawson
Anthony
Reviews & comments
Woland
-
- 4899 messages
- 3925 votes
Raw film about life in the 'hood - we see it and mainly the woes of Caine and his friends. Caine is the son of a junkie mom and a dealer dad, raised with grandparents, and raised in the gang life from childhood. His friends are (for the most part) of the same cloth, unscrupulous murderers, rapists and muggers who live in a vicious circle of more and more violence and revenge on both sides. It is difficult to estimate how realistic these images of life in Compton are, but I find it difficult to muster much sympathy for Caine. Never mind for someone like O-Dog. Of course, a shitty youth and ditto environment, and raised in a culture where crime, machismo and violence are central, but I can rarely catch him with good intentions, and often he is also the cause of the violence. He beats several people for absolutely nothing, he kills, he impregnates women and then leaves them alone, he likes to drink his girlfriend's son and let him with his gun play. He may be a little less extreme than someone like O-Dog, but that's a very low frame of reference. But the film does show quite convincingly the spiral of misery and violence, and how difficult it is to get out of it or at all to live in it with a straight back. Boyz n the Hood was better and more subtle, but this one is a lot better than Juice.
Translated from Dutch · View original
starbright boy (moderator films)
-
- 22749 messages
- 5356 votes
I am so old that I can still remember the reports of fights in American cinemas at this film and New Jack City. Those were the messages that preceded it. Now many years later, it turned up on one of my many visits to a thrift store. A DVD from the early days with a guide to the menu on the DVD.
Good film whose urgency is still palpable. Raw, but never drills deep like Do The Right Thing or La Haine. I find the strong the reflection between the scene in which Caine kills someone and the scene in which someone kills him.
It's a pity that The Hughes Brothers never really lived up to the promise of this debut. New jack City is by the way on my wish list when I come into a cycle again or if someone has it for my swap topic here.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Corporate & Media
Realtimes Network
Innovatieweg 20C
7007 CD, Doetinchem, Netherlands
+31(315)-764002
