REVIEW:
Menace II Society is a movie about some very bad people. This is the opposite of Boyz N The Hood, a movie which also showcased hood life including violence, tough talking characters, and drive-by shootings. The difference is in Boyz N The Hood, it was mostly about characters who didn’t want that life. Two of the three main characters in that movie (Tre and Ricky,) didn’t want the thug life, and the third one, Dough Boy, still had values. He didn’t just kill for sport. In Menace II Society, on the other hand, the characters are all pretty ruthless.
Take for example the way the movie opens up with Caine and O-Dog at a bodega, when the clerk makes a nasty comment to O-Dog and O-Dog responds by blowing the man’s head off. And his wife’s too. And then, just a few scene later, we are at a party with O-Dog showing the security camera footage to his friends, as all of them watch and laugh at the scene of him shooting a man in the head. Yeah, these are some pretty nasty people.
The movie tries to make the case that for Caine, he doesn’t start out this way, but gets corrupted and put into a life where he never really had a choice. It does this by showing that his parents were drug dealers who resorted to violence and murder (his dad played by Samuel L Jackson in a quick cameo appearance.) Pretty soon Caine is going off to live with his Grandparents where he is surrounded by friends who know violence as a way of life. So, when leaving a party with his cousin in a car, for example, another car pulls up, hijacks them, and shoots at them, killing Caine’s cousin and sending Caine to the emergency room with bullet wounds.
While the violence is all around these characters, Caine is offered up some other options, mainly by his grandparents, who try to show him a more peaceful lifestyle. The two of them, as well as another father figure, played by Charles S Dutton, offer up some words of wisdom for how to actually avoid the violence and stay alive. Only Caine doesn’t listen, and doesn’t even have an answer for whether or not he wants to live.
As the movie goes on, Caine does find a purpose, which is to move to Atlanta with Ronnie (Jada Pinkett Smith,) and her young son, who Caine has become a father figure to. Only Caine has also taken the path of more and more violence. When the cousin of a girl that Caine impregnated approaches him wanting answers, for example, Caine beats the man up. So it’s only fitting that Caine can’t advocate violence and also expect to live in peace at the same time.
The movie is scary and powerful. It is disturbing in the kind of ways that you can’t look away from. This makes for a great companion piece to Boyz N The Hood, showing us the same scenarios from a different perspective. Not all protagonists are moral, and this movie takes chances by giving us the story of the some of the worst of the worst, and telling it in such a compelling way.