Baby Boy (2001)

Purely Joyful Movie!

Just perfect...

A Brilliant Conflict

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Coming-of-age story set in South Central Los Angeles is director John Singleton's 'counterpart' to his 1991 debut Boyz n the Hood about a puerile, twenty-year-old black youth named Jody who lives at home, mooches off his mother, and refuses to embrace manhood despite having fathered two children with two different women. His life reaches a crossroads when his mother's ex-con boyfriend-turned-legitimate businessman Melvin (Rhames) moves into their house, and his girlfriend's volatile ex Rodney (Snoop Dogg) is released from prison. Covers familiar ground, to be sure, and is excessively raunchy at times, but there and poignant and compelling themes, startling, authentic scenes, and top shelf acting from a supremely talented cast. ***

Baby Boy (2001): Dir: John Singleton / Cast: Tyrese Gibson, Omar Gooding Jr., Ving Rhames, Snoop Dogg, Adrienne-Joi Johnson: Inspiring film about growing up with Tyrese Gibson as a twenty year old who lives at home but he is a father himself of two children by different women. He drives his girlfriend home from the abortion clinic then he borrows her car to go visit other women. To make money he resorts to selling stolen female clothing. His sister is involved with an ex con who is trying to go straight. Outside the house Gibson is involved in gang wars with his best friend. His girlfriend's ex-boyfriend is getting out of prison and decides to move in with her. The conclusion is violent and somewhat corrupt but director John Singleton who is famous for Boyz N the Hood establishes interesting visual moments. Gibson is superb as a young man pretending to grip reality rather than face adulthood even though some decisions were extremely unwise. Omar Gooding Jr. as his best friend is into gang wars and finalizing one of Gibson's personal wars. Snoop Dogg makes a good impression as a criminal who forces his way and meets consequences. Ving Rhames is compelling as an ex-con building for acceptance. Adrienne-Joi Johnson plays Gibson's mother who urges him to grow up. Theme addresses women involved with men who aren't emotionally ready to commit. Score: 9 / 10

Part semi-serious Gangster movie, part domestic life in the hood, I found it pretty entertaining. Vang and Snoop, with their borderline psychopathic personalities, round out the movie nicely. There are also some great comedic moments. For example one young gangster wanna-be hood rat needs to answer for his disrespect, but shows "heart" so he's told he won't be punched in the face. Instead he immediately gets belt whipped and screams like, well like a kid getting whipped with a belt. Little nuggets like this made me bust out laughing. (The best kind of comedy is funny because it is, not because it's pointed out to you that it's supposed to be funny.) A little more tame than "Menace II Society" it has the same quirky feel with moments that just ring true.

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.