Juice and South Central Reviews

Juice boasts an impressive cast, including the likes of Omar Epps (best known as House’s Dr Foreman), Samuel L Jackson, Queen Latifah and, best of all, late rap legend Tupac. The film follows a group of four school-skipping friends in Harlem, all of whom are fairly dopey, huggable hip-hoppers, rather than violent gang-bangers. Q (Epps) dreams of becoming a superstar DJ and auditions for a prestigious competition. Bishop (Tupac) however, wishes the group to become a fully-fledged gang; he buys a gun and convinces his friends to stick up a convenience shop, which proves to be the central climax. The rest of the film deals with the unfortunate aftermath.

It may be somewhat rough around the edges, but Juice is an exciting and often humorous drama. Its director, Ernest R. Dickerson may have gone onto bigger and better things in recent years – his television work includes Treme, Dexter, The Walking Dead and the behemoth that is The Wire – but Juice is an early indicator of his quality touch. Tupac is an engaging screen presence, though there’s a tragic irony in his character’s gun-lust, given real life events involving the rapper and firearms. The soundtrack is also excellent and consists of some choice cuts of premium old skool hip hop.

South Central is slightly more expansive in its scope and comes across a little like the Crips’ answer to Goodfellas. Bobby is a young man involved in the formation of the Deuce gang on the opposite coast to Juice, on the streets of LA. After being convicted for killing a rival gang boss – and thus paving the way for Deuce supremacy – Bobby is incarcerated for ten years. In the meantime, his young son Jimmy becomes embroiled in the Deuce gang and becomes both a perpetrator and victim of violence. Again, the film looks to how this cycle of absent fathers and criminal violence could be put to a stop.

Glenn Plummer is outstanding as Bobby and is the glue that holds the whole film together. It may be slightly softer than Juice and a whole lot more sentimental, but South Central is perhaps the slightly better film. Though my lefty sensibilities force me to raise an eyebrow at the film’s insistence of the importance of the traditional family unit in remedying violence, it would be foolish to deny it isn’t a factor at all. And whilst the film may be a little heavy-handed in its moralising, it is not at the expense of numerous gripping and shocking moments.

Both films are eye-opening and thrilling accounts and have aged surprisingly well. If you’ve an interest in American gang culture in the nineties or urban films such as Boyz N the Hood or Do the Right Thing, then this duo is well worth seeking out. I guess the most important thing to take from both of them is that those responsible for violence are very often victims themselves. Juice andSouth Central are excellent films with a welcome social conscience.

Soul Men Review

Samuel L Jackson and Bernie Mac star in this road movie/rockumentary/buddy comedy. Louis and Floyd were backing singers in a legendary 70s soul group, The Real Deal, but fell on hard times after lead singer Marcus Hooks (played by John Legend) went solo. Thirty years later, Floyd is stuck in a retirement home and Louis is living in poverty after a spell in jail. When news of Hooks’ death reaches the pair, they are cajoled into travelling across America to perform at their former band mate’s memorial concert. Things, however, do not go smoothly, as estranged daughters, aging groupies and their own acrimonious relationship threaten to derail the whole venture.

It is unfortunate that the film is overshadowed by the deaths of Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes (who has a small part as himself), who both passed away within weeks of filming. A sweet tribute to Mac plays out over the credits, which is in stark contrast to the otherwise frenzied tone of the film. Apparently, the film was re-cut following the deaths to allow for a softening of its tone, which is surprising – the film is relentlessly rude from start to finish, with enough f-bombs launched to level a small country.

The film is ultimately something of a mixed bag. There are several funny one liners, the ‘archive’ footage of the band in its heyday is amusing and Samuel L Jackson remains an actor I’d be happy to watch in anything. The music is also not too bad (there was a quite clever moment in which a soul song was given a rendition with country and western instrumentation) and Mac is also reasonably charming. In spite of this, though, the film is wholly unoriginal, rather scattershot in its approach and uncomfortably offhand towards women. There was also a sequence featuring domestic violence, which, while commendably punishing a wrongdoer, sat uncomfortably with the more adolescent humour throughout the rest of the film.

Soul Men is a rather rough diamond then; or a highly polished turd. Given the inconsistencies in tone, it would have been interesting to see how the original cut played out, one hopes it may see the light of day yet, if only out of curiosity.