Film Credits

Written & Directed by: John Singleton

Starring: Larry Fishburne, Ice Cube, Cuba Gooding Jr., Nia Long, Morris Chestnut, Tyra Ferrell, Angela Bassett, Desi Arnez Hines II, Redge Green, Dedrick D. Gobert

Review

Writer/director John Singleton proves that he's a force to be reckoned with thanks to his excellent Boyz N The Hood, a film that takes a long, hard look at life in South Central Los Angeles. South Central is a literal war zone, with poverty, racism and excessive violence running rampant, but Singleton shows that there's hope for the future for people who care about their situation and want to make it better. I'm not one who likes to get into the deep social or political values of the films I review - I tend to focus on how well they hold up as entertainment, leaving any in-depth "analysis" up to the individual viewers or others who are better equipped to handle such discussions. But with Boyz N The Hood, it's almost difficult to discuss the film without  bringing up those issues, issues made more poignant especially after our recent Los Angeles riots. The basic plot behind Boyz N The Hood features Tre Styles (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), a boy sent to live with his father, Furious (Larry Fishburne), in a gang-infested neighborhood in South Central. Furious is one of the few voices of reason in this troubled community, and he's trying to raise Tre in such a way that the constantly-threatening chaos, ignorance and violence won't infect Tre the way that it has nearly everyone else. An impressive and fascinating film all around.

If you have to get Boyz N The Hood on disc, the only way to go is with The Voyager Company's "Criterion Collection" edition, which has been personally approved by director Singleton. The disc not only features a letterboxed edition of the film, but includes an audio commentary and several other extras as well. Mastered from an intermediate positive, the transfer looks very good, with a sharp image, decent colors, and much-needed letterboxing (at an approx. 1.78:1 aspect ratio). The transfer also has some minor video noise problems, but it is rarely, if ever, a distraction. The disc's remarkable soundtrack was mastered from a 2-track magnetic Dolby surround stereo master, and is contained only on the disc's digital tracks. The film soundtrack appears again on Analog 1, but in mono, with Analog 2 reserved for a full-length commentary by director Singleton. Because of this dual-audio formatting, the disc is not CX-encoded. Due to several factors, Singleton's commentary is a refreshing change from the norm. First, because of his close association with the project (he was writer and director...); second, because he was raised in South Central and the contents of the film are close to his heart; and lastly, because here is a 23-year-old recent film-school student extremely pleased with his work (and deservedly so).

As I mentioned a short while ago, Voyager's disc contains a couple of supplementary features. The first segment, a series of four audition videos, appears on the end of side one. Dating from August 1990 and featuring Ice Cube, Tyra Ferrell, Morris Chestnut and Angela Bassett, these auditions are presented simultaneously via a four-way split screen, with each of the disc's four audio channels containing a different screen test soundtrack. While having the actors/actresses "audition" their respective roles and then giving their feelings on the characters they will portray is a nice inclusion on the disc, these excerpts run barely over a minute in length apiece and are too short to be of any real value.

A more worthy addition to the disc is the inclusion of two deleted scenes at the end of side two, scenes originally removed from the final film since they interrupted the pacing. The two sequences (one approx. 3m45s minute scene has Tre discussing his future with his mother; another approx . 45s scene has Furious confronting Doughboy after a murder), are in decent shape, though not perfect, having been transferred directly from a workprint; some dirt, a softer image, splices and other minor blemishes exist. Voyager has thoughtfully chapter-marked the disc in such a way that you can program these deleted scenes to appear in their original sequence in the film, and they have also included an insert sheet containing the proper programming instructions. Unfortunately, while the programming works, it is very slightly off: at each of the two points where the deleted scenes are to appear (after chapter #22 and #26), a few frames of the following chapter appears before the player has a chance to switch over to the added footage (i.e., where a deleted scene should appear immediately after chapter #22, a few frames from chapter #23 appear before the deleted scene is cued up). If Voyager had only moved the chapter markers for #23 and #27 back a few frames, the programming would have been flawless.

Boyz N The Hood was pressed at Sony DADC, is Table of Contents encoded, and contains 36 listed chapter markers (29 for the film, 7 for supplementary features). Fans of the film wanting a less-than-perfect laserdisc edition should know that it is also available in a standard, cropped edition from Columbia/Tri-Star.

Supplementary Recap

• Audio commentary by John Singleton (analog track 2)
• Audition Videos
  • Ice Cube
  • Tyra Ferrell
  • Morris Chestnut
  • Angela Bassett
• Deleted Scenes: Introduction
• Deleted Scene: Tre discusses his future with Mom
• Deleted Scene: Furious confronts Doughboy