african-american directors series: menace ii society (albert and allen hughes, 1993)

I'm not sure, but I don't think I've seen this movie since it came out more than 30 years ago. It had a huge impact on me, in particular, the performance of Larenz Tate as O-Dog.

It's an amazing supporting cast: Glenn Plummer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Samuel L. Jackson (I have seen him in more movies than any other actor, 41 and counting), Khandi Alexander, Arnold Johnson, Saafir, Pooh Man, MC Eiht, Too $hort, Bill Duke, Charles S. Dutton, and more. Tate's co-lead, Tyrin Turner, is by necessity less flamboyant, but he is effective. But it's Tate who grabs the screen. Credit to the Hughes Brothers and writer Tyger Williams for creating the character Tate portrays. Over the past 30 years, Larenz Tate has shown his versatile side ... his work isn't defined by O-Dog. But I didn't know that in 1993, and his acting is so believable I forgot he was an actor.

O-Dog seems to take joy out of killing people, and the way he shows off a surveillance tape of one of his murder/robberies is cringe-worthy, except Tate makes that seem joyful, too. The film is not exactly celebratory ... most of the main characters come to tragic ends due to their ways of life. But, in an odd way for a movie so full of excessive violence, the Hughes Brothers don't overplay their hands.

In 2002, a Brazilian film, City of God, reminded me a lot of Menace II Society. It's a better film, one of the all-time classics in fact, and the "O-Dog" character in the Brazilian movie makes O-Dog seem almost subdued. But it's no crime to fall short of a great movie like City of God, and Menace II Society is even better than I remembered it. It is astonishing that this was not only the directorial debut for the Hughes Brothers, who previously had only done a few music videos, but they were only 20 years old at the time.