Boyz n the Hood (1991)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Audio Commentary-John Singleton (Director)
Rating
Year Of Production	1991
Running Time	107:35
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	John Singleton
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Laurence Fishburne Cuba Gooding Jr. Ice Cube Morris Chestnut Nia Long Angela Bassett Tyra Ferrell Lexie Bigham Hudhail Al-Amir Lloyd Avery II Mia Bell Kenneth A. Brown Nicole Brown
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Stanley Clarke Ice Cube

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French German Italian Spanish Arabic Dutch Hindi Portuguese Turkish English Audio Commentary French Audio Commentary German Audio Commentary Italian Audio Commentary Spanish Audio Commentary Dutch Audio Commentary	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    I first watched this movie around ten years ago and remember finding it had quite an impact at the time. On viewing the DVD all these years later, most of that impact remains intact. Boyz 'N The Hood remains a strongly scripted, well acted and poignant work which is essentially a "coming of age" piece. What sets this particular story apart is that it focuses totally on African American characters, set amongst the gang violence on the harsh streets of South Central Los Angeles - the Hood of the title. Director John Singleton has gone on to make several bigger budget films (2 Fast 2 Furious, Rosewood, Higher Learning) since this, his first work. None of them better the sense of reality and the level of personal ownership which is so evident in this debut piece. He wrote and created this movie at 21 (only four months after leaving USC Film School) and was nominated for two Oscars (Best Original Screenplay and Best Director) for the flick when he was still only 23.

     Young Tré Styles is forced to live with his father Furious when his mother tires of his misbehaviour at school. The movie follows his progress through school, as he experiences the trials and tribulations of surviving in a neighbourhood rife with crime and where "one in every twenty-one" young black men die at the hands of a gun-toting thug.

    Furious tries to ensure that Tré keeps to the straight and narrow, despite the temptations around him. In addition to his proud and hard-working father, Tré's world revolves around his best friends who live just across the street - the troublesome Doughboy and his football-playing brother Ricky. Tré and Ricky become inseparable friends during the time Doughboy spends in jail for petty theft and other misdemeanours. Tré works hard to gain a place at university, whilst Ricky hopes that his sporting prowess will secure him a sports scholarship. Life seems to be going well, what with Tré's love interest Brandi (Nia Long) also headed for a college place. Unfortunately not everyone in the Hood is quite so aspirational and when the boys fall foul of a group of local thugs, their plans look set to change...

    This film features quite a stellar cast, with a number of stars and soon-to-be stars present - Laurence Fishburne is marvellously understated as Furious, Ice Cube gives a credible performance as the wayward Doughboy and Cuba Gooding Jr portrays the aspirational, wide-eyed Tré Styles to a tee. Boyz 'N The Hood is a dazzling debut movie from John Singleton. It remains as watchable today as when it was released over ten years ago, and still manages to deliver a punch. Highly recommended for fans of the director, the stars or just a damned good story.

Video

    The overall video transfer of this film is rather good given its age and relatively low budget.

    The movie is presented in a measured 16x9 enhanced aspect ratio of 1.80:1, which is close to the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

    There is some mild grain present at times but it is never too disturbing. The interiors in the film can sometimes tend to feel a little soft, but most of the outdoor shots in particular are acceptably sharp.

    Shadow detail is pretty good and black levels are generally satisfyingly deep albeit with some minor low level noise evident on occasion. Colours are fairly vivid in outdoor scenes although a little drab in some of the interiors. Skin tones are fine throughout.

    The transfer has no major MPEG artefacts. I noticed no instances of aliasing on my (progressive scan) system and whilst there is some occasional edge enhancement evident as a halo around characters, it is never annoying. There is noticeable telecine wobble during the opening and closing title sequences, but it is not obvious during the film itself.

    This is a reasonably clean transfer although there are some fleeting film artefacts which crop up on occasion (these are actually fairly marked around 103:00).

    The English subtitles follow the dialogue reasonably closely, with some minor edits for brevity, and they are legible and well timed.

    This is a single sided, dual layered (DVD 9) disc but I did not notice any layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality of this disc is serviceable without being anywhere close to a demonstration track.

    There is a solitary English audio track available which is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo encoded at 192 kbps. Additional tracks in French, German, Italian and Spanish are encoded in the same audio format. The audio track has no major defects in the way of clicks, pops or dropouts. Dialogue was clear throughout and I noticed no problems with the audio sync.

    Original music is credited to Stanley Clarke (Higher Learning, Passenger 57) who seems to have done much of his work in television rather than cinema releases. The incidental pop songs are unremarkable and generally serve as little more than background noise.

    The soundstage is understandably frontal in nature. There is reasonable separation across the front speakers, with occasional panning evident - for instance from the several helicopter fly-bys. Pro Logic II will see some music and ambient noise directed to the surround speakers - the shootings and helicopter activity in the opening titles for instance - but generally this is a dialogue driven film so there is little to work with in the way of audio effects. The subwoofer is lightly used to carry some bass, for example from gunshots, but there is nothing in the way of true LFE activity.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There is a single but worthwhile extra present.

Menu

    The main menu is an animated sequence of clips from the film accompanied by a loop of a gangsta rap piece. It allows the options of playing the feature, activating subtitles and selecting the audio language, selecting one of twenty-eight chapter stops, or viewing the sole extra:

Audio Commentary

    John Singleton provides a warm and laid-back commentary track that makes for an enjoyable listen. He covers the origins of the film - much of it taken from his own life experiences, the writing process and the way he feels about the film nowadays. He is very open about the influences of his own childhood on the story, and how he learned how to make films during the making of his debut feature. Based on his comments, this track was recorded in approximately 1999 and it is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 encoded at 192 kbps. There are subtitles available for the audio commentary track.

    In Region 1 this film is available in a single disc format or as a two-disc Anniversary set.

    The Region 1 single disc release misses out on:

• Commentary track by John Singleton

    Compared to the Region 1 single disc, the Region 4 misses out on:

• Trailers - Boyz N The Hood, As Good As It Gets and Jerry Maguire

    The Region 1 two disc release contains the following extra features:

• Commentary track by John Singleton
• Documentary - Friendly Fire: The Making of an Urban Legend. This apparently runs for around forty minutes and is a recently filmed piece, presumably made to accompany the Anniversary edition of the DVD.
• Two Deleted Scenes
• Filmographies
• Eight movie trailers
• Music Videos - Growing Up In The Hood and Just Ask Me To

    The Region 4 release contains the audio commentary, so is the preferred choice when it comes to single disc releases. If you wish to see the documentary however, you will have to fork out for the Region 1 two disc Anniversary set.

    Boyz 'N the Hood is a striking coming-of-age film, set in the gangland streets of South Central LA, which remains well worth watching. Whilst there have been more dramatic and violent cinema visits to the Hood, there are few which come across with such a level of intimacy. Well worth watching for those who have not seen it before - and for those who have, it is well worth revisiting.

    The video quality is acceptable without being great.

    The audio quality is serviceable, without any major flaws.

    The extras are limited to an interesting commentary track which is surely worth a listen.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall