Four teen friends grow up in a tough Harlem neighborhood. They skip school, hang out, steal music records for Q, and get harassed by the police and Radames' gang. Bishop (Tupac Shakur) has a chip on his shoulder and a drug addicted father. Q (Omar Epps) is an aspiring DJ. Steel is the chubby sidekick. Raheem has a baby and an angry baby mama. Bishop is angry for always running and losing a friend. He pushes the other three especially Q to rob a bodega. Bishop ends up killing the owner. In the aftermath, the boys argue and Bishop kills Raheem.

Tupac shows his acting chops and some real power with potential. Omar Epps shows his presence by providing a stable center for the movie. There are other newcomers but these two are the standouts. This is a small scale epic tragedy of angry young man in a difficult world. Their troubles are almost inevitable.

If there's a way to get introduced to the acting of Tupac Shakur (and I don't count his cameo as part of that group that somehow got roped in to Nothing But Trouble 1991),it's when he's channeling James Cagney, among other high figures of cinematic criminal legend. What makes Bishop such a dynamic and terrifying but recognizable force is that we can understand where he comes from.

He is the antagonist of this story of four high school friends (who rarely if ever go) who go for Bishop's plan to get "the Juice" - to do a Big Bad Thing and get some money but most of all to get respect. But is he a true villain? Maybe, to some. For me, every bad decision hes made leads him to what he does and who he is (and though its a subtly done point, and powerfully so, he doesn't have a father as he's there but tuned out for reasons left ambiguous).

Hes not the protagonist though, and I was mistaken thinking going in he was, that's Omar Epps's Q, the guy who wants to find a way out of Harlem and to make it it's through music. Epps in his way is very good too, and in his way he has to be the one who is about as close to an "everyman" as one can find who is young and in a place like Harlem at that time. There's two others in this self-professed "crew" that Bishop has, but its clear since they've been together since kids, they don't easily take anyone's s*** much less each others... Until a gun comes into play.

This is a terrific and vividly realized debut for Ernest Dickerson, who mostly shows restraint as a former cinematographer (notably for Spike Lee on his first six films) in doing anything exactly 'flashy' or shots that might call attention to themselves (the interrogation with the cops may be an exception but a good one, as it's meant to be shown fully that the pressure is ON). But Dickerson makes the correct visual choices here to show this world as is, with a sort of muted/naturalistic color palette and editing that really POPS when it calls for it (ie any of the scenes where Q DJs or any time there's a chase, especially near the end).

But its most of all in his script that this sticks out as memorable. There are a couple of types here and there as far as the minor characters (Samuel L Jackson plays one but brings it full life anyway for the 5 minutes hes on),but all the same we have a young game cast that's given the kind of material that enlivens melodrama with a good deal of humor early on (some still lands, especially with an audience, some doesn't) by being as real as possible. It's also how Harlem itself looks and feels - we see this in montage over the credits - so that it cant be mistaken about how raw and rough life is for these guys.

And yeah, Im not sure if I necessarily buy that young guys in the early 90s sit around and get excited about White Heat it still works as a metaphor anyway.

This movie was a PSA. Everyone! This is what thugs look like. Please hide your women and children. Lock your doors and put away your valuables because we have four young black men dressed in urban gear, grabbing their crotches, skipping school, and listening to hip-hop.

This movie was awful. Four homies with no real future roam the streets on a daily basis smoking, fighting, stealing, and screwing instead of... I don't know.... going to school. They were all of high school age and presumably still enrolled. The most violent of them, Bishop (Tupac),wanted everyone to fear him, but how is that possible when you're about 5'10" 160 pounds? Talking hostile and with a lot of profanity is only going to scare so many people. The solution: a gun.

Once you have a gun you can rule the world. With a gun you can reach new heights. With his gun he became drunk with power or should I say "juice". He became an untameable animal. No one was safe from his fangs, not even his friends. And that's one of the main things I didn't like about this movie.

Besides the fact there were four black male youth going nowhere one of them had to be a homicidal maniac. Was it that he was a murderer just waiting for the proper tool to practice his craft or was it the possession of the death device that was the impetus for him becoming a killer? It was clear that he was unstable to begin with so there is little doubt that owning a gun would only make him more unbearable but even killers have a sense of friends and family. Or are we to believe that he was so depraved that childhood bonds were so tenuous as to be broken by a lust for "juice?"

The entire scenario was absurd to me and I honestly believe that if Tupac wasn't in the movie no one would know about it. I remember jockin' this movie when I was younger--back when I thought being tough was paramount. Back when I was enamored with people who just didn't give a... But now as an adult I watch movies like this shaking my head. Movies like this only serve to perpetuate certain negative stereotypes. Besides Q (Omar Epps) being a DJ these four itinerant youth had nothing going for them; it was sad.

And I can't end this review without mentioning the last line of the movie:

"You got the juice now."

Anyone who has watched the movie knows the very scene I'm referring to. My God how pathetic of an ending. I can't think of a worst ending except maybe "Jungle Fever" when Wesley Snipes grabbed the complete stranger and yelled, "Noooooooooo!"

Ugh.