Menace II Society (1993)

Starring Tyrin Turner, Larenz Tate, and Samuel L. Jackson. This film is amazingly well done for two twenty one year old filmmakers on their very first feature length and is considered by many critics to be one of the best in it’s limited genre.  The independent project was produced for an amazing two and a half million dollars and it grossed nearly thirty.  It’s the story of a young black man growing up in Los Angeles.  His childhood and early adult years expose him to nothing but the violence, ignorance, and hate that festers in the impoverished urban districts that surround him.  He is given a number of choices to break free of his seemingly self-imposed chains, but his learned ignorance keeps him down and he drops deeper and deeper into a sort of insanity.  The film was inspired by Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas and is a variant of the gangster life it portrays. The Hughes brothers said that they wanted to make a film about urban life that the audience would be able to, if not relate to, empathize with. There was originally a full scale prison riot scene that was shot for the film.  The extras were actual prisoners and the scene eventually got out of control. The footage was achieved, but didn’t end up making it to the final cut of the film.  The brothers later admitted that they weren’t ready for that type of scene, and flubbed it. Runtime 95 minutes.  (Written and directed by Allen and Albert)