Baby Boy

2001 "Just a Baby Boy."
6.4| 2h10m| R| en| More Info
Released: 27 June 2001 Released
Producted By: Columbia Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

The story of Jody, a misguided, 20-year-old African-American who is really just a baby boy finally forced-kicking and screaming to face the commitments of real life. Streetwise and jobless, he has not only fathered two children by two different women-Yvette and Peanut but still lives with his own mother. He can't seem to strike a balance or find direction in his chaotic life.

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Reviews

GamerTab That was an excellent one.
Dotsthavesp I wanted to but couldn't!
WiseRatFlames An unexpected masterpiece
Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.
Newsense I really, really hate this movie. I bought it based on my love for John Singleton's past films like Boyz N The Hood, Rosewood and Higher Learning. These were great films that I felt had thought put into them plus had a social commentary that was valid at the time of these films releases. Baby Boy not only lacks a conscious, it also lacks the realism that John Singleton's earlier movies had. I could say that I don't know why John Singleton made this film but I understand all too well. When John Singleton made Higher Learning,it received vitriolic reviews from pseudo-intellectual charlatans that label every film that dealt with issues race as propaganda. The rest of the masses just slept-on it or allowed clownish so-called hip hop ragazines like Jive...oops I meant Vibe magazine to persuade their opinions. So I understand why he would make brainless MTV-style fodder like 2 Fast 2 Furious, Shaft and Baby Boy. I believe he would have still made movies of substance like Higher Learning if Higher Learning was universally accepted(with all its flaws) and not universally panned.The whole story of the film revolves around Jody(Tyrese Gibson) and his problems in his life revolving his mother's new boyfriend Melvin(Ving Rhames), His baby mother Yvette(Taraji P. Henson) and his day to day struggle around making ends meet with his partner Sweetpea(Omar Gooding). Tyrese does a decent job as Jody but the character is flat out despicable. Now lets look at the characters of the main people in this film.Tyrese as Jody: Irresponsible idiot that cheats on his woman and has another baby mother by the name of Peanut(Tamara Leseon Bass). He still lives with his mother and seems to think that is cool for a man his age to do that. He cheats on his woman and treats her like dirt. He is basically the sick caricature that Follywood promotes as the true definition of black manhood.A.J. Johnson as Juanita: A mother that dresses like a Malibu hooker and tries to look cool at her age. She never pushes Jody to do anything with his life and gets into a relationship with a convict that grows weed in her garden and has no job.Taraji P Henson as Yvette: a very naive young woman that sense that Jody is cheating on her and still sticks with him. She is given to fits of rage for the most simplest things and never talks to Jody with respect period.Ving Rhames as Melvin: Stupid and psychotic former criminal that brags about his past misdeeds as if that was cool. He grows weed in his girlfriend's backyard and allows Jody to take the blame. He mumbles nonsense about bread and butter and has the nerve to wonder why Jody doesn't like him to date his mother. Hell, I would have let Hannibal Lecter date my mother over this fool any day! Omar Gooding as Sweatpea: A numbskull that curses out the same girlfriend and her mother that allowed his stupid a** to stay with them when he had no place to go. He has no conscious and seems to do things out of impulse not logic.Now tell me, are these the people you want to spend two hours of your life with? Tyrese and Snoop Dogg were the most convincing of characters in this movie. and to say that Cuba Gooding Jr's cousin cant act is the least of his problems. Its not like Ving Rhames, A.J. Johnson, Taraji P Henson cant act but their characters are underdeveloped and poorly written Shouting and arguments turn into sexual situations and the most asinine scene in the movie has to be when Jody backhands Yvette after she punched him. He takes her to the room and proceeds to give her funnylinguis. WTF? That scene is still a head-scratcher till this day. I'll admit that I laughed at the scene where Jody and Sweetpea beat the hell out of a bunch of teenage punks that jumped Jody earlier but the laughter turned to disgust as soon as Sweetpea pulls out his belt and starts whipping the final victim for showing no fear.Closing comments: Baby Boy is a mess and will set black cinema back a couple of years. Nobody with a conscious exist in Baby Boy. Nobody of sound Mind exists in Baby Boy. Boyz N The hood has Furious(Laurence Fisburne) to add insight to that film. Where is his equivalent in Baby Boy? Nowhere to be found. No insight went into this film. Just a bunch of despicable and ignorant caricatures . If you want see better movies from John Singleton see his earlier works like the movies I mentioned earlier in this review and forget that this overtly preachy joke exists if you can.
TOMASBBloodhound Baby boy is the story of a young man, who apparently like many others in the inner-city, refuses to accept the duties and responsibilities of adulthood. He doesn't wish to "leave the nest" as his mother suggests he do in an early scene. Jody Summers, played by the charismatic Tyrese Gibson, is a representation for the kind of man Singleton wishes to indict with his film. Jody is twenty years old. He still lives with his mother, he has no steady job, he has children with two different women (that we know of), no car.... the list goes on. We see an intelligence within the young man that at times wants to bubble to the surface, but always seems to get stifled by bad decisions that usually involve women.In the first scene, we see Jody pick up his main-stay girlfriend (Taraji P. Henson) from the abortion clinic. After bringing her home and lovingly tucking her into bed, he's off with her car to visit the mother of another of his children. Jody really gets around with the ladies. But instead of marrying one of them or at least moving in with them, he prefers to live at home with his mother. One day there is great big surprise waiting at home when he arrives. His mother his a new man (Ving Rhames), and the two are crazy about each other. Melvin, a reformed criminal, intends to move in, and that leaves Jody feeling the pressure to move out and start an adult life of his own. Things are also complicated by the release from prison of Snoop Dog. He is a former boyfriend of Jody's woman, and he shows up at her place uninvited and looking for trouble.The film is a series of fights (both verbal and physical), make-up sessions, explicit sex, shootings, and thoughtful insight. The film is cast to perfection, and the pacing is without peer for this type of film. At 130 minutes, the film never outstays its welcome. There is a ton of profanity, and acrimony between the major players. Will Jody decide to grow up and marry the woman he loves? Will he ever see eye to eye with his mother's new boyfriend? Will Snoop Dogg get what's coming to him? Let's just say that things end up happy on most counts. I wish, along with Director John Singleton, that there would be more happy endings in the lives of these kinds of people.These characters, and the world they live in, are as far from anything I've ever experienced in my own lifetime as they could be. It is a credit to John Singleton that he could make me care so much about them in this terrific film. The film made a decent profit at the theater, and will continue to be appreciated for years on the DVD market.8 of 10 stars.The Hound.
Claudio Carvalho Jody (Tyrese Gibson) is an immature unemployed Afro-American, living with his mother in a ghetto and having a son with his girl-friend Yvette (Taraji P. Henson), but not assuming a family of his own and not being faithful to Ivette. Jody has a serious Oedipus complex problem and Sweetpea (Omar Gooding) is his best-friend. When his mother gets a new boy-friend, the dangerous Melvin (Ving Rhames), and the former boy-friend of Yvette, Rodney (Snoop Dogg), leaves the prison on probation, Jody has to find a destination to his life."Baby Boy" is not the best work of John Singleton. Although having a great performance of the Afro-American cast, the story about reaching the maturity in a dangerous ghetto is too long and all the characters are non-charismatic. It takes too much time for the twist point and I really did not like this movie. Maybe American viewers, who live closer to this reality, may appreciate "Baby Boy". My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "Baby Boy – O Rei da Rua" ("Baby Boy – The King of the Street")
adrian-j-hill I say "Awful" with a question mark in my title because I said that this movie was horrible in front of my coworkers and they vehemently denied it. As I sat in utter disbelief coming to the realization that they truly liked this movie, they sat in equal utter disbelief coming to the realization that I thought it was pure trash. Now, I saw this movie 1 and 1/2 times and they saw it more than me, so their defense was more profound than my critique, but nonetheless it made me take a step back and re-review it. I saw it when it came out, but these were the first people I had met in 2 years who didn't think this movie was awful. And this wasn't based on region, class, age, or any demographic worth noting. Everybody I discussed this movie with thought it was completely ridiculous. Until now. So let me throw in my 2 cents to compare and discuss among others.To understand why I hate this movie, I have to bring up others. Boyz N Tha Hood and Menace II Society had characters in it that were actually likable, and even though they did things that some considered immoral, it wouldn't be immoral in their different set of rules. For example, Kane and Tre, did things and reacted in ways to situations based on their life and the rules in the hood. Doughboy and Wax may have been thugs and criminals, but they didn't do things in excess of rules put in place. None of them started pointless fights or disrespected others for no reason, and all of them tried to do "right" by the rules. So, if you have a character in a movie who is supposed to be like, he by definition has to be likable. Doughboy, Kane, Tre, Wax and even the murder happy O-Dogg were likable in the context of the hood. Conversely characters like the racist cop and the dude that dropped a dime on Kane and O-Dogg (after Kane beat him like that boxin on TV) were unlikeable and rightfully so. Adding this in, 2Pac's character in Poetic Justice also falls along these lines. Now take Baby Boy. I couldn't stand any character other than Ving Rhames and the mother. Ving was an ex con trying to do right and Tyrese tried him one too many times and got hemmed up and later decked. And the mother had one (and formerly another) bum of a son who refused to grow up and she tried to educate him and his girl until finally she had enough and rightfully kicked him out. But Tyrese as the main character had zero redeeming qualities. He ran his mouth way too much and was a worthless father and boyfriend. Plus, he used the memory of his dead brother to guilt his mother into takin care of him. Kane and Tre were trying to grow up and even if they had childish backward views on certain issues, they were trying. Tyrese wasn't. His girlfriend was even worse. She knew he cheated on her and still stayed with him. She let Snoop barge in her house without any concern for her child. My coworkers said I judged her without knowing her background. Look, all I had to go off of was her chickenhead behavior in the movie. Like Tyrese, she ran her mouth too much and was loud and was the cause for her own troubles. And as the two main characters you were supposed to connect with them, I didn't - not because I couldn't forgive them for their flaws, but because they didn't do anything to deserve it. Every bad thing that happened to them, they facilitated it and wanted us to feel sorry for them. The only reason these two worthless idiots are together is because neither one of em could handle Snoop. Please. Gimme a break. We may all know people like them or have friends like them and while we wouldn't bad mouth them, at some point we have to stop making excuses and call a spade a spade, or in this case, an idiot an idiot.So this moves me to the secondary characters. They were all idiots and exaggerated stereotypes that ALWAYS took the low ride. Omar Gooding was hilarious as the over hard friend. And that girl from Tyrese's girls work was awful. Again, I am aware that there are people like this, but NOT 24-7. These characters RARELY did anything right. They were all unlikeable as people in general. This is unrealistic. And every scene was exaggerated to the extreme. When Tyrese's girl was talking to her friend and her man came up behind her and started hittin it? Again, I'm not sayin it's totally unrealistic, but it's a bit much. At no point in this film did I connect with these characters in a good way. I saw friends and family playing these roles, but they were the friends and family I made fun of or disliked.Overall, this movie was crap, made even worse with scenes like Omar Gooding acting all hard, and the ridiculous womb scene. I laughed AT this movie as opposed to WITH it and although my coworkers made me rethink my stance, I just couldn't bring myself to change it.