Boyz n the Hood

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the 1991 film. For the Eazy-E song, see Boyz-n-the-Hood. For works with similar titles, see Boyz n da Hood (disambiguation).

Boyz n the Hood
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Singleton
Written by	John Singleton
Produced by	Steve Nicolaides
Starring	Ice Cube Cuba Gooding Jr.Morris Chestnut Larry Fishburne
Cinematography	Charles Mills
Edited by	Bruce Cannon
Music by	Stanley Clarke
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release dates	July 2, 1991 (Los Angeles)July 12, 1991 (United States)
Running time	112 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$5.7–6.5 million^[1]^[2]
Box office	$57.5 million^[2]

Boyz n the Hood is a 1991 American coming-of-age hood crime drama film written and directed by John Singleton in his feature directorial debut.^[3] It stars Cuba Gooding Jr., Ice Cube (in his film debut), Morris Chestnut, and Laurence Fishburne (credited as Larry Fishburne), with Nia Long, Tyra Ferrell, Regina King (in her film debut), and Angela Bassett in supporting roles. Boyz n the Hood follows Tre Styles (Gooding), who is sent to live with his father Furious Styles (Fishburne) in South Central Los Angeles, where he reunites with his childhood friends while surrounded by the neighborhood’s booming gang culture. The film’s title is a reference to the 1987 Eazy-E rap song of the same name, written by Ice Cube.

Singleton initially developed the film as a requirement for his application to film school in 1986 and sold the script to Columbia Pictures upon graduation in 1990. During writing, he drew inspiration from his own life and from the lives of people he knew and insisted he direct the project. Principal photography began in September 1990 and was filmed on location from October to November 1990. The film features breakout roles for Ice Cube, Gooding Jr., Chestnut, and Long.

Boyz n the Hood was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival.^[4] It premiered in Los Angeles on July 2, 1991, and was theatrically released in the United States ten days later. The film became a critical and commercial success, grossing $57.5 million in North America and earning nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the 64th Academy Awards. Singleton became the youngest person and the first African American to be nominated for Best Director. In 2002, the United States Library of Congress deemed it “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.^[5]^[6]

Plot

[edit]

In 1984, ten-year-old Tre Styles lives with his single mother, Reva Devereaux, in South Central Los Angeles. After Tre gets into a fight at school, his teacher informs Reva that although intelligent, he lacks maturity and respect. Concerned about Tre’s future, Reva sends him to live in the Crenshaw neighborhood of South Central with his father, Furious Styles, hoping Tre will learn life lessons from him. Furious is strict but also caring and attentive.

In Crenshaw, Tre reunites with his childhood friends Darrin “Doughboy” Baker, Doughboy’s half-brother Ricky, and their friend Chris. One night, Furious calls the LAPD after shooting at a burglar. Two officers arrive an hour later. The white officer is civil and professional, while the black officer is hostile and demonstrates self-hatred. The next day at Chris’s suggestion, Tre and his friends go to look at a dead body, after which a group of men harasses them. Later on, en route back from a fishing trip, Tre and Furious notice Doughboy and Chris being arrested for theft.

Seven years later, Doughboy, now a Rollin 60s Crips member^{[citation needed]} and drug dealer, is released from prison. Attending his welcome-home party are Chris, now paraplegic due to a gunshot wound, and new friends and fellow Crip members Dooky and Monster. Ricky is now a star running back at Crenshaw High School who hopes to earn a university scholarship. He lives with his mother Brenda, his girlfriend Shanice, and their toddler son. A visiting University of Southern California recruiter informs Ricky that he must score above a 700 on the SAT to qualify for a football scholarship. Meanwhile, Tre, now a mature and responsible teenager, hopes to attend college with his girlfriend Brandi.

During a nighttime street gathering on Crenshaw Boulevard, Ferris, a member of the rival Bloods, provokes Ricky. Everybody comes to Ricky’s defense, with Doughboy flashing a handgun. The gangs argue but cooler heads prevail, until Ferris fires an automatic MAC-10 into the air, causing everyone to flee. Tre and Ricky are soon pulled over by the police, and Officer Coffey- the same self-hating officer who responded to the burglary call in 1984- threateningly holds his revolver to Tre’s throat. A distraught Tre goes to Brandi’s house, where he breaks down. After she comforts him, they have sexual intercourse for the first time.

The next afternoon, Doughboy and his gang notice Ferris and two Bloods members driving through their neighborhood seeking retribution for the previous night’s confrontation. Brenda then asks Ricky to run an errand, but Ricky encounters and brawls with Doughboy beforehand, and Brenda takes Ricky’s side. Ricky’s test results are delivered as he and Tre depart. Later spotted by the Bloods, they cut through back alleys to avoid them before splitting up. However, the Bloods catch up to Ricky, and he is fatally shot. A distraught Doughboy helps Tre carry Ricky’s bloodied corpse home. Afterwards Brenda and Shanice, both devastated by Ricky’s death, tearfully blame Doughboy for instigating the shooting.

Wanting vengeance, Tre takes Furious’ gun and is about to leave to join Doughboy but is intercepted by his father, who seemingly convinces him to abandon his plans for revenge. Moments later, though, Furious and Brandi catch Tre sneaking out to join his friends. Later that night, as they drive around the city, Tre comes to his senses and returns home. Meanwhile, Brenda receives Ricky’s SAT results and discovers that Ricky had scored a 710, enough to qualify for the scholarship he wanted. After Doughboy, Dooky and Monster unexpectedly encounter Ferris and the Bloods at a diner, Monster guns down the fleeing trio in a drive-by shooting. Doughboy then stops and exits his car to approach their bodies; seeing that Ferris and Ricky’s killer are still alive, he executes them both in a vengeful situation. Later that evening, when Tre arrives home, he and Furious stare at each other before entering their bedrooms for the night.

The next morning, Doughboy visits Tre, understanding his reasons for abandoning the gang. Knowing he will face retaliation for killing Ferris, and accepting the consequences of his own lifestyle, Doughboy questions why most people “don’t know, don’t show, or don’t care about what’s going on in the hood” and laments his brother’s death. Tre embraces him as a surrogate brother.

As Doughboy leaves and Tre goes back into his house, a postscript from the epilogue text reveals that Ricky was buried the next day and Doughboy was murdered two weeks later. Tre ultimately leaves in the fall to attend college with Brandi in Atlanta, Georgia as the movie concludes with the rolling credits.

Cast

[edit]

Cuba Gooding Jr. as Tre Styles
- Desi Arnez Hines II as young Tre
Ice Cube as Darrin “Doughboy” Baker
- Baha Jackson as young Doughboy
Larry Fishburne as Furious Styles
Nia Long as Brandi
- Nicole Brown as young Brandi
Morris Chestnut as Ricky Baker
- Donovan McCrary as young Ricky
Tyra Ferrell as Brenda Baker
Angela Bassett as Reva Devereaux
Regina King as Shalika
Redge Green as Chris
- Kenneth A. Brown as young Chris
Dedrick D. Gobert as Dooky
Baldwin C. Sykes as Monster
Alysia Rogers as Shanice
Tracey Lewis-Sinclair as Shaniqua
Meta King as Brandi’s mother
Whitman Mayo as The Old Man
Yolanda Whittaker as Yo-Yo
Lexie Bigham as “Mad Dog”
Raymond Turner as Ferris
Lloyd Avery II as Knucklehead #2
John Singleton as The Mailman
Kirk Kinder as Officer Graham
Jessie Lawrence Ferguson as Officer Coffey^[7]

Production

[edit]

Singleton wrote the film based on his own life and that of people he knew.^[8] When applying for film school, one of the questions on the application form was to describe “three ideas for films”. One of the ideas Singleton composed was titled Summer of 84, which later evolved into Boyz n the Hood.^[8] During writing, Singleton was influenced by the 1986 film Stand by Me, which inspired both an early scene where four young boys take a trip to see a dead body and the closing fade-out of main character Doughboy.^[8]

Upon completion, Singleton was protective of his script, insisting that he be the one to direct the project, later explaining at a retrospective screening of the film “I wasn’t going to have somebody from Idaho or Encino direct this movie.”^[3] He sold the script to Columbia Pictures in 1990, who greenlit the film immediately out of interest in making a film similar to the comedy-drama film Do the Right Thing (1989).

The role of Doughboy was written specially for Ice Cube, whom Singleton met while working as an intern at The Arsenio Hall Show.^[8] Singleton also noted the studio was unaware of Ice Cube’s standing as a member of rap group N.W.A.^[8] Singleton claims Gooding and Chestnut were cast because they were the first ones who showed up to auditions,^[8] while Fishburne was cast after Singleton met him on the set of Pee-wee’s Playhouse, where Singleton worked as a production assistant and security guard.^[9]

Long grew up in the area the film depicts and has said, “It was important as a young actor to me that this feels real because I knew what it was like go home from school and hear gunshots at night.” Bassett referred to Singleton as her “little brother” on set. “I’d been in LA for about three years and I was trying, trying, trying to do films,” she said. “We talked, I auditioned and he gave me a shot. I’ve been waiting to work with him ever since.”^[3]

The film was shot in sequence, with Singleton later noting that as the film goes on, the camera work gets better as Singleton was finding his foothold as a director.^[3] He has a cameo in the film, appearing as a mailman handing over mail to Brenda as Doughboy and Ricky are having a scuffle in the front yard. Filming began on October 1, 1990, in South Central Los Angeles, with several gang members serving as consultants, on “wardrobe, vocal emphasis and dialogue changes” to ensure authenticity.^[1]

Reception and legacy

[edit]

Critical response

[edit]

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 96% based on 71 reviews and an average score of 8.40/10. The website’s critical consensus reads, “Well-acted and thematically rich, Boyz n the Hood observes urban America with far more depth and compassion than many of the like-minded films its success inspired.”^[10] At Metacritic, the film received an average score of 76 out of 100 based on 20 reviews, which indicates “generally favorable” reviews.^[11]

Cultural impact

[edit]

Boyz n the Hood launched the acting careers of Gooding, Cube, Chestnut, Long and King, who were given their first major leading roles in the film, as well as the first significant film role for Angela Bassett^[3] Along with Colors (1988) and Do the Right Thing (1989), Boyz n the Hood is credited as a notable pioneer of the hood film genre, with its success leading to American hood films such as New Jack City (also 1991), Juice (1992), Menace II Society (1993), Friday (1995), Training Day (2001), 8 Mile (2002), Hustle & Flow, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (both 2005), Dope, Straight Outta Compton (both 2015) and The Hate U Give (2018).

For his work, Singleton earned nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the 64th Academy Awards, making him the youngest person and first African American to be nominated for Best Director. Since then, the only black nominees in the category have been Lee Daniels, Steve McQueen, Barry Jenkins, Jordan Peele and Spike Lee. In 2002, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Accolades

[edit]

Award	Category	Nominee(s)	Result	Ref.
Academy Awards	Best Director	John Singleton	Nominated	^[12]
Academy Awards	Best Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen	John Singleton	Nominated	^[12]
BMI Film & TV Awards	Film Music Award	Stanley Clarke	Won
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards	Best Film		Nominated	^[13]
	Best Director	John Singleton	Nominated
	Best Supporting Actor	Ice Cube	Nominated
	Best Supporting Actor	Laurence Fishburne	Nominated
	Best Screenplay	John Singleton	Nominated
	Most Promising Actor	Ice Cube	Won
	Most Promising Actor	Cuba Gooding Jr.	Nominated
Dallas–Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards	Best Film		Nominated
Dallas–Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards	Best Director	John Singleton	Nominated
Kids’ Choice Awards	Favorite Movie		Nominated
Kids’ Choice Awards	Favorite Movie Actor	Ice Cube	Nominated
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards	New Generation Award	John Singleton	Won	^[14]
MTV Movie Awards	Best Movie		Nominated
MTV Movie Awards	Best New Filmmaker	John Singleton	Won
NAACP Image Awards	Outstanding Motion Picture		Won
National Board of Review Awards	Top Ten Films		7th Place	^[15]
National Film Preservation Board	National Film Registry		Inducted
New York Film Critics Circle Awards	Best New Director	John Singleton	Won	^[16]
Online Film & Television Association Awards	Hall of Fame – Motion Picture		Won	^[17]
Political Film Society Awards	Exposé		Nominated
	Human Rights		Won
	Peace		Won
Stockholm International Film Festival	Bronze Horse	John Singleton	Nominated
Writers Guild of America Awards	Best Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen	John Singleton	Nominated	^[18]
Young Artist Awards	Outstanding Young Ensemble Cast in a Motion Picture	Desi Arnez Hines II, Baha Jackson, and Donovan McCrary	Won	^[19]