San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)

John Singleton’s ‘Boyz’ holds up after 30 years

- — Mick LaSalle

Thirty years since its release in July of 1991, it’s hard to overstate the impact of “Boyz N the Hood.” This was one of those rare films that sent audiences out of the theater with their molecules rearranged.

John Singleton’s classic told the story of kids growing up in a Los Angeles neighborho­od overrun by gang violence. But what made the violence feel so powerful was that Singleton adopted a leisurely pace throughout, so that every time something horrible happened, it seemed to happen out of nowhere, in the midst of some otherwise average day. These are kids who learn, as a matter of course, that on the way to the grocery store, in the middle of the day, they could get killed.

This is one of the great films of the 1990s, the crown jewel in Singleton’s legacy.

 ?? Columbia Pictures 1991 ??
Columbia Pictures 1991

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