SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Syl This movie was filmed around the time of the Rodney King riots that ripped South Central Los Angeles. Let's face it, the heart and soul of Los Angeles isn't Hollywood. It's the people like in this movie who try to make living, earnestly, honestly, and respectively. Sadly, this film is still realistic to the plight of urban problems. I spent a lot of time in one of the great urban cities of the East Coast and the problems of poverty, the lure of leading drug dealing lives is real and tempting, domestic violence, child abuse, gangs, etc. still exist and will exist much to the attempts of prevention or society ignoring their presence. Anyway, this film is truly about the heart and soul of a city of ten million Angelenos and the father's attempt to save his son from a life of crime, violence, death, and drugs in the city. It's not an easy battle.

mmr07 I just wanna say that I caught the last hour of the movie, I have no idea how it started but I was watching the DVD lady Jane and I paused to see what's on TV and there it was, South Central, and I watched the part in prison where Ali defends his friend from the mob inside by giving them what they need from cigarettes and services in return to stay away from the black inmate. The encounter between Ali and boy's father where he describes what happened to his son was the most powerful scene I've seen in any movie, it brought me literarly to tears. Another strong scene was the final 5 minutes, I'll let you discover it for yourselves because you'll be blown away, I don't know why the reating is so little in quantity and in quality, I'm giving it a 9/10 for its strong performances and also a great theme where it touches the source of Black gang violence and how a small corrupted group can effect the whole community, on the other hand also how a corrupted gang member can also be saved by a strong willful cultured person like Ali.Great Movie, a must see...

NoTZ i thought this movie was cool the first time i saw it.. like when i was in 5th grade... low and behold 10 years later when i see it again, I WAS TOTALLY TOTALLY WRONG. this movie was quite bad. it's one of those that you regret seeing, like howard the duck. my suggestions is to take every copy of it off the market and have a good old burn pile. the movie is garbage and if i ever wanna see something like this, i'll just turn on the upn or the daily news.

iam-1 This movie makes you care about its characters. This should be said about all films, but this one accomplishes it where others do not. The story revolves around a young man in South Central Los Angeles who is involved in a gang that is slowly making itself successful by selling drugs. He goes to jail after being convicted of shooting another gang lord. While in prison, his son grows up and is drawn by the romance and easy money of his father's old gang, and becomes involved as well. The story is a little over-simplistic, and the dialogue is a bit thin at times. But the director and cast rise to the challenge and turn this into a film about relationships and philosophy, rather than going for the easy solution of shooting off as many guns as possible. The ending is one of the most sappy we've seen in a while (just a bit too much 'Mom and apple pie'), but given the situation you are willing to go with it. While it's not perfect, this film ultimately works -- which is better than 95% of this genre.