Boyz n the Hood

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

Boyz n the Hood
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Singleton
Produced by	Steven Nicolaides
Written by	John Singleton
Starring	Ice Cube Cuba Gooding, Jr. Morris Chestnut Laurence Fishburne Nia Long Angela Bassett
Music by	Stanley Clarke
Cinematography	Charles Mills
Editing by	Bruce Cannon
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	July 12, 1991
Running time	112 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$6.5 million
Box office	$57,504,069

Boyz n the Hood is a 1991 American crime drama film written and directed by John Singleton. Starring Ice Cube, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Morris Chestnut, Larry Fishburne, Nia Long and Angela Bassett, depicting life in South Central Los Angeles.

Boyz n the Hood was filmed in 1990 and released in the summer of 1991. It was nominated for both Best Director and Original Screenplay during the 1991 Academy Awards, making Singleton the youngest person ever nominated for Best Director and the first African–American to be nominated for the award.

The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival. In 2002, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Plot

In 1984, ten-year-old Tre Styles (Desi Arnez Hines II) lives with his single mother Reva Devereaux (Angela Bassett) in Inglewood, California. After Tre gets involved in a fight at school, his teacher calls Reva. The teacher informs Reva that although Tre is rather intelligent, he is immature and lacks respect for classmates and adults alike. Frightened about the future of her child, Reva sends him to live in the Crenshaw neighborhood of South Los Angeles with his 27-year-old father, Furious Styles (Laurence Fishburne), from whom she hopes Tre will learn valuable life lessons.

On the night of Tre's arrival, he hears his father shooting at a burglar. LAPD officers arrive more than an hour later, and eventually decide the crime is unimportant because nothing was taken and the burglar escaped completely unharmed. The police, particularly the African American officer, treat Furious with disrespect and contempt. The following day, Tre reunites with childhood friends Darrin "Doughboy" Baker (nicknamed because of his obesity), Doughboy's maternal half-brother Ricky, and Chris, their mutual friend. Doughboy and Ricky live with their mother across the street from Furious.

While Ricky is naïve and trusting, Doughboy is aggressive and street-smart. As the kids wander into another neighborhood to view the decaying corpse of a murdered gang member in a vacant lot, Doughboy gets into a fight with a teenage Crip named Rick Rock (Vonte Sweet) after he intimidates Ricky and steals Ricky's football. Doughboy is beaten up, but the ball is returned to him later by a Crips gang member. Furious, who appears to be the only father present in the neighborhood, takes Tre on a fishing trip, where the two discuss sexual nature and the responsibility of fatherhood. Furious also advises Tre to not ever join the army, as Furious himself served in Vietnam. The pair return to Crenshaw, where they witness Doughboy and Chris being led by police officers into a squad car after having been caught shoplifting in the local drugstore.

Seven years later, in 1991, a "welcome home" party is being held in the Baker home. Doughboy (Ice Cube), who had previously dropped out of high school and lost a significant amount of weight, has just been released from prison, and sits at a table playing dominoes with Chris (Redge Green), now in a wheelchair from a gunshot wound, "Dookie" (Dedrick D. Gobert), and "Monster". Ricky (Morris Chestnut), now a star running-back for Crenshaw High School, lives at home with his mother Brenda (Tyra Ferrell), girlfriend Shanice (Alysia Rogers), and their toddler son. Meanwhile, Furious has managed to tame Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.), who now holds a steady job as a clerk at the Fox Hills Mall and excels in school. He hopes to attend college with his girlfriend, Brandi (Nia Long), whose desire to remain abstinent is a source of tension between them. After the party is over, Tre walks home with leftovers for his father. As he walks along the street, Tre notices a toddler, the child of Cheryl, a local drug addict. He brings the toddler back to Cheryl, angrily reminding her to "keep the babies off the streets."

Continuing on the way home, Tre encounters a group of Bloods gang members, who threateningly tease Tre by pointing a double-barreled shotgun at him. When Tre gets home, he gets a haircut from Furious, telling him about his first failed attempt to have sex. Tre's father seems amused at first, but then sternly asks if Tre used a condom, warning against the dangers of contacting a sexually transmitted disease and of becoming a father at a young age (using himself as an example, as he was 17 when Tre was born). Life goes on in the Hood, with scenes including Tre flirting with Brandi and a drug-addict getting beat up by Doughboy and his gang after stealing Dookie's necklace. One night, a man from the USC comes to interview Ricky about college, but Ricky's rude friends make a bad impression. Ricky hopes to earn a scholarship to USC, but is daunted by the requirement that he must earn a 700 on his SAT to pass.

Later, during a local street racing gathering, Ricky is provoked by Ferris (Raymond Turner), a Bloods member. In defense of Ricky, Doughboy, now a Crips member himself, brandishes his .45 ACP handgun and points it to Ferris's head. Ferris fires his MAC-10 into the air, causing everyone to speed away from the scene. Tre and Ricky are pulled over by an LAPD patrol; the lead officer turns out to be the same one who responded to the burglary call made by Furious seven years earlier. The officer shoves a gun in Tre's neck and taunts him, asking what he will do about it. Tre arrives late to Brandi's house and breaks down crying; later that night, they have sex for the first time.

The next day, Ricky, annoyed by his girlfriend, has a fight with Doughboy. Brenda rushes to Ricky's aid while berating Doughboy. Ricky and Tre later encounter Ferris and the Bloods. Doughboy, upon seeing Ferris and his fellow Bloods roll up on the block, senses that Tre and Ricky are in trouble, and rushes to their defense. Ricky and Tre cut through back alleys and separate to avoid them, but the Bloods find Ricky and shoot him once in the leg, knocking him to the ground. Ferris himself shoots him then in the back, killing him instantly as the Bloods race away from the scene. Tre cradles Ricky's corpse as he mourns his friend while Doughboy and his friends arrive too late, and are just as grief-stricken as Tre. The boys take Ricky's body home where Brenda and Shanice hysterically blame Doughboy, who unsuccessfully tries to comfort them. Later that night, Brenda sobs over Ricky's test results, discovering he earned a 710 — just enough to qualify for a USC scholarship.

Doughboy, Dookie, Monster, and Tre vow revenge on the Bloods. Furious finds Tre holding his .357 Magnum pistol (which he kept a secret away from his father), and has a fight with him, but eventually convinces him to abandon his plans. However, Tre sneaks out of his bedroom window to join Doughboy and the Crips. Later that night, as the gang drives around the city, Tre realizes that he is making a mistake and asks to be let out of the car. Doughboy pulls over and lets Tre out at a bus stop. Tre heads back home, realizing his father's words. Doughboy finds the Bloods eating at a fast-food restaurant, and Monster opens fire on them with a Type 56 assault rifle in a drive-by shooting through the glass. Despite both Monster and Dookie's pleas to flee the scene, Doughboy gets out of his car and personally kills Ferris and the other wounded gang member execution-style while Ferris begs for his life, avenging Ricky's death. Meanwhile, Tre returns home and finds his waiting father. Furious and Tre silently exchange glances for a moment, and then Furious enters his own room and slams the door.

The next morning, Doughboy visits Tre, now understanding Tre's reasons for abandoning the gang. Doughboy — having killed three men — knows that he will soon face retaliation for Ferris' death, and accepts the consequences of his crime-ridden life. He plaintively questions why America "don't know, don't show, or don't care about what's going on in the Hood." He sorrowfully says that he has no brothers left now after Ricky's death, but is embraced by Tre, who says Doughboy still has "one brother left." Doughboy then walks away, pouring out his malt liquor simultaneously.

In the epilogue text, it is revealed that Doughboy is murdered two weeks later on the street with the avenging Bloods members. Tre and Brandi resume their steady relationship, and go on to attend Morehouse and Spelman in Atlanta.

Cast

• Ice Cube (Baha Jackson, young) as Darrin "Doughboy" Baker, maternal half-brother of Ricky.
• Cuba Gooding, Jr. (Desi Arnez Hines II, young) as Tre Styles, son of Furious and Crenshaw High School senior.
• Morris Chestnut (Donovan McCrary, young) as Ricky Baker, maternal half-brother of Doughboy and all-star football player at Crenshaw High School, Tre's best friend.
• Laurence Fishburne(credited as Larry Fishburne) as Jason "Furious" Styles, father of Tre.
• Nia Long as Brandi, Tre's girlfriend.
• Angela Bassett as Reva Devereaux-Styles, mother of Tre.
• Tyra Ferrell as Brenda Baker, mother of Doughboy and Ricky.
• Redge Green (Kenneth A. Brown, young) as Chris.
• Dedrick D. Gobert as Dookie.
• Baldwin C. Sykes as Monster.
• Tracey Lewis-Sinclair as Shaniqua.
• Alysia Rogers as Shanice, Ricky's girlfriend and the mother of his son.
• Regina King as Shalika.
• Lexie Bigham as Mad Dog.
• Raymond Turner as Ferris.
• Lloyd Avery II as Thug #2, Ricky's shooter
• Mia Bell as female gang member.
• Duncan Ferris as furious drug dealer.

Reception

Critical response

Boyz n the Hood has received widespread critical acclaim. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 96% based on 48 reviews, with an average score of 8.3/10, making the film a "Certified Fresh" on the website's rating system. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 73%, based on 18 reviews, which indicates "Generally favorable reviews".

Cultural impact

The film has been referenced innumerable times in other works, including works by Lupe Fiasco, Game and by Ice Cube himself. In 1994, British jungle DJ duo Remarc and Lewi produced a song titled "Ricky". The song itself is built up of various sound bites from the movie. Particularly the scenes in which Ricky is shot and dies. Ice Cube's song, It Was a Good Day, also slightly references the film.

On the July 12, 2011 episode of her self-titled talk show, Mo'Nique celebrated the 20th anniversary of the release of Boyz n the Hood with director John Singleton, Cuba Gooding Jr., Yo-Yo, and Regina King.

Awards and accolades

Academy Awards: 1992

• Nominee, Best Director, John Singleton
• Nominee, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, John Singleton

BMI Film Music Award: 1992

• Winner, Stanley Clarke

Image Award: 1993

• Winner, Outstanding Motion Picture, Boyz n the Hood

MTV Movie Award: 1992

• Nominee, Best Movie, Boyz n the Hood
• Winner, Best New Filmmaker, John Singleton

National Film Preservation Board, USA: 2002

• National Film Registry, Boyz n the Hood

New York Film Critics Circle Award: 1991

• Winner, Best New Director, John Singleton

Political Film Society, USA: 1992

• Winner, PFS Award, Peace
• Nominee, PFS Award, Exposé
• Nominee, PFS Award, Human Rights

Writers Guild of America, USA: 1992

• Nominee, WGA Award (Screen), Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, John Singleton

Young Artist Awards: 1992

• Winner, Young Artist Award, Outstanding Young Ensemble Cast in a Motion Picture

In 2007, Boyz n the Hood was selected as one of the 50 Films To See in your lifetime Channel 4.

Soundtrack

Year	Album	Peak chart positions		Certifications
		U.S.	U.S. R&B
1991	Boyz n the Hood Released: July 9, 1991 Label: Qwest/Columbia Records	12	1	US: Gold

External links

• Boyz n the Hood at the Internet Movie Database
• Boyz n the Hood at AllRovi
• Boyz n the Hood at Box Office Mojo
• Boyz n the Hood at Rotten Tomatoes
• Boyz n the Hood at Metacritic