Set It Off (1996)

Wonderful character development!

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Director F. Gary Gary treats the the plight of a quartet of blue-collar African-American women with great sympathy in "Set It Off." Each of these women have experienced adversity first hand and the idea is that they have been dealt a bad hand by destiny. One woman prostitutes herself to ensure that her brother gets to go to college, but she finds out later that her efforts were for naught. Another woman is implicated in a bank robbery simply because she knew the man who robbed her bank and didn't follow the procedures that she had been drilled in. Another woman is a single parent who has to work one job to pay the babysitter. Finally, the fourth member who is the least sympathetic is a lesbian who has been restoring her car since the seventh grade. These closely-knit friends take their lumps but decide that whatever a man can do, they can do better. Consequently, they embark on a life of crime in this predictable, often contrived, but nevertheless entertaining crime thriller. Clearly, the moral of the story is don't rob banks. If you know somebody robbing a bank, you must behave as if you don't know them. Never, never, never--if you are a single-parent--ever bring your unattended infant to the workplace. Crime doesn't pay and "Set It Off" makes it abundantly clearly as three out of the four survive. The fourth escapes because somebody on the other side allows them to getaway. The performances are sometimes a little too over the top, especially Jada Pinkett and Vivica A. Fox. If you abhor profanity, prepare yourself for an onslaught of the F-bomb.

I watched this film a long time ago (aprox 10 years or so) and liked it then. I remembered it the other day and decided to watch it again. The second time around was not pleasant. The acting is 'so,so', the plot is illogical, unreasonable and predictable.The acting...I'm sure it wasn't a stretch for those actresses to play those characters. The plot...there's no way in hell those women would have gotten away with the first robbery much less the 2nd. (side note: Why did TT not realise that even if she came up with a load of money for her court date they would ask where she got it and she would have no logical answer! Ding, Ding...we have a crook!). It horribly stereotyped black women in saying basically that the only way black women can 'beat the system' or obtain a large amount of money was to steal it and not use their intelligence or other resources. It plays too much on sympathy b/c all of them die in the end (bar Jada) but it's not sad (you're thinking 'They were so stupid; they deserve to die). You just don't really care about the characters unless you're a shallow person.I can't believe this film rates over a 5.

i have watched the movie more than ten times already but i cry every time. some people might think its because I'm a feminist who just love them because they are women , I'm not sure thats not entirely true . you just cant resist feeling sorry for them. I think many people can associate with what they are going through because almost everybody has had one or more raw deals in their lives before.In the beginning i thought Cleo was the "motherly" character( u know what i mean now)but it turns out that Stony actually is.all the raw deals they experienced seemed so next door. they are just the girls next door who would do anything to survive and get by. their families came first especially for T.T and Stony . Look at what Stony did to get his brother the money to go to the best college.typical woman/ mother love. The brother's rejection does not make her love him any less. T.T was to do anything for her baby even if it meant getting involved in the robbery which she was very skeptically about. the love of the woman

I've just finished watching this movie 15 minutes ago and there are still tears falling down my face. I actually had to stop watching for a little while because i was crying to much. This movie started off happy and exciting, followed on with jam packed action and ended with tears going down my face. I haven ever watched a movie which i grew so attached to, the actors (the 4 girls) were truly awesome and really made you feel apart of the movie.For anyone thinking whether they should or should not watch this movie, the answer is YES you should watch this movie, you'll have laughs, crys, you'll be on the edge of your seat wanting to see more, I'm shocked this movie didn't do better at box office, only made around $100,000,000 worldwide.