Menace ii society (spine 1105)

Menace II Society
Directed by: The Hughes Brothers
1993
Spine #1105

In the opening scene of Menace II Society, 21-year-old twin filmmakers Allen and Albert Hughes introduced themselves like a crack of lightning across the cinematic sky. In the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts, circa 1993, two young Black teens - Caine (Tyrin Turner) and O-Dog (Larenz Tate) - stroll into a convenience store, where the Korean owner and his wife hang on their every move, making little effort to mask their distrust (or disdain). At first it feels like a textbook case of racial profiling… until that initial sense of unease is trampled by a sudden and shocking eruption of violence that’s not unlike the tightly coiled jaws of a bear trap snapping shut. In that moment, the Hughes Brothers laser in on the uncomfortably hazy nexus between truth and stereotype (which Best Picture winner Crash would explore in far more ham-handed fashion years later). “After that,” Caine comments in matter-of-fact voice-over “I knew it was going to be a long summer.” 

It’s difficult to analyze Menace II Society without first passing through the lens of Boyz n the Hood - John Singleton’s landmark 1991 debut, which helped usher in the wave of Black urban dramas and crime thrillers that proliferated throughout the 90s. Boyz n the Hood was the more significant film, but one could argue that Menace II Society is the more cinematically accomplished, more aesthetically audacious, more immediate in its grit and verve. Boyz n the Hood, with its “increase the peace” messaging, was also a fundamentally optimistic film at heart (one that couldn’t help but stray into raw yet blunt social commentary - “Either they don’t know, don’t show, or don’t care about what’s going on in the hood”), whereas Menace II Society revels more boldly in its own clear-eyed nihilism. Cuba Gooding Jr’s Tre was essentially a good kid at heart, trying to avoid falling victim to his own circumstances… whereas the Hughes Brothers make clear that their film represents the battle for Caine’s troubled soul.

Caine graduates from high school, which is initially a cause for celebration… but that quickly gives way to an aimless and volatile summer for him and his friends. He is portrayed as neither hero nor villain, sinner nor saint; he dabbles in drug-dealing and other petty crime, but has no particular taste for it… he simply exists in the moment, no vision of the future, no direction, no discernible passions or interests that might offer a glimmer of salvation. A carjacking results in the death of his cousin Harold, which in turn leads to vicious retribution. In the film’s eyes, Watts symbolizes a never-ending cycle of violence - almost Dante-esque in its sense of spiritual damnation and despair - and the Hughes Brothers aren’t remotely cryptic about the fact that Caine’s only hope is to escape… either with his friends Stacy and Sharif, who invite him to accompany them to Kansas, or his love interest Ronnie (an impossibly young Jada Pinkett-not-yet-Smith), who asks him to move to Atlanta with her and her young son Anthony. To stay is to end up dead or jailed - no other outcome is an option. 

Tyrin Turner is quite good as Caine (and many have puzzled over why he didn’t go on to a bigger career)… but it’s Larenz Tate, as the charismatic, baby-faced sociopath O-Dog, who sends jolts of electrical current shivering through the screen. His scenes are genuinely scary (“America’s nightmare - young, Black, and didn’t give a fuck” Caine offers, by way of description) - at one point, he puts a bullet in a desperate crack addict out of sheer annoyance, then casually asks his friends if anyone wants the dead junkie’s discarded cheeseburger. Unlike Caine, his destiny feels immutable - a damned soul locked on a path to oblivion before he’s even reached legal age.   

It’s still hard to understand why the Hughes Brothers never quite reached the cinematic stratosphere. Their underrated follow-up Dead Presidents led to From Hell - their indelible adaptation of Alan Moore’s Jack the Ripper graphic novel - which should have cemented their standing as directing superstars. Instead it took them almost a decade to make another movie - the Denzel Washington post-apocalyptic neo-Western The Book of Eli - and then they broke up. Both have continued to produce quality work on their own, but they were a far more formidable force together. The unflinching power of their debut feature continues to endure, however. At one point early on in the movie, Caine’s exasperated grandfather asks his grandson if he even cares whether he lives or dies, to which Caine is unsure how to respond. As the film reaches its harrowing climax, and Caine faces his reckoning, he thinks back to that moment and declares “Yeah… I do.” And we realize that we feel the same way.