His father was a dope dealer who was killed in a drug deal when he was 10 years old and his mother was a heroin addict who died of an overdose.
Kaydee "Caine" Lawson (Tyrin Turner) is a child raised in South Central Los Angeles, California. We are not asked to sympathize with him, but to a degree we do, in the sense of the empathetic prayer, "There, but for the grace of God, go I." It is clear that, given the realities of the society in which he is raised, Caine's fate is a likely one.Spoiler warning: The following contains plot details about It's impressive, the way the filmmakers tell Caine's story without making him seem either the hero or victim he is presented more as a typical example. "Menace II Society" is as well-directed a film as you'll see from America this year, an unsentimental and yet completely involving story of a young man who cannot see a way around his fate. The Hughes twins, given a chance, reveal here that they are natural filmmakers.
The message here is obvious: Many victims of street violence are a great loss to society, their potential destroyed by a bankrupt value system. Their mother gave them a video camera when they were 12, they told me at the Cannes Film Festival, and that pointed them away from the possibilities they show in their film, and instead toward their current success. The brothers were 21 when they finished the film, but already they have a track record of many music videos.
#What is a menace to society movie
The movie was directed by Allen and Albert Hughes, twin brothers, and is based on the screenplay they wrote with their friend, Tyger Williams. If " Boyz N the Hood" was the story of a young man lucky enough to grow up with parents who cared, and who escapes the dangers of the street culture, "Menace II Society" is, tragically, about many more young men who are not so lucky. But it doesn't blame the easy target of white racism for that: It looks unblinkingly at a street culture that offers its members few choices that are not self-destructive. This movie, like many others, reminds us that murder is the leading cause of death among young black men. He has the values of his immediate circle, and the lack of imagination: He cannot envision a world for himself outside of the limited existence of guns, cars, drugs and swagger. His mentor's girlfriend, who wants him to move to Atlanta with her and start over.īut Caine's world is narrow.
His God-fearing grandparents, who eventually throw him out of the house. A friend who has an athletic scholarship. There are people in Caine's life who care for him. Eventually dozens of people will know who killed the grocer, but nobody will be charged with the crime, because such violence is so common and the laws are such that many murders simply slip through the fingers of the police. During the course of the movie, O-Dog will use the videotape for entertainment at parties, freeze-framing the moment of the grocer's death. He sees it in terms of his own misfortune: He went out to get a beer, and now he's an accessory to murder. That is all O-Dog needs to hear, and he murders the grocer and then forces his wife to hand over the store's security videotape before killing her, too.Ĭaine is shocked by this sudden violent development. "I feel bad for your mother," the grocer says as they are about to leave. Caine and O-Dog engage in a little meaningless verbal intimidation, aware that because they are young and black they can score some points through the couple's fear. The grocer and his wife, who don't want trouble, ask them to make their purchase and leave. The movie opens as Caine and O-Dog, his heedless, violent friend, enter a Korean grocery store to buy a couple of beers. For him, "respect" is the product of intimidation: If you back down because you fear him, you "respect" him. He adopts the street values based on a corruption of the word "respect." He wants respect but has done nothing to deserve it. The tragedy of Caine's life is that he cannot stand back a little and get a wider view, see what alternatives are available. The film's narration tells us he is society's nightmare: "He's young, he's black, and he doesn't give a -." We see that it is more complicated than that. By the time he is in high school, Caine wears a beeper on his belt and is a small-time drug dealer. He takes an older neighborhood man as his mentor, only to see him go to prison. As a small boy he sees his father murder a man over a trivial matter.
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