Friday [VHS] [1995]

Friday is the rarest specimen of African American cinema: a hood movie refreshingly free of the semi-seriousness and moralism of shoot-'em-up soaps such as Boyz N the Hood, yet still true to the inner-city experience. Scripted by rapper Ice Cube, Friday is a no-frills tale of a typical day in the life of a pair of African American youth in South Central. Cube plays Craig, a frustrated teen who endures the ultimate humiliation: getting fired on his day off. Then unknown Chris Tucker plays Smokey, a marijuana-worshipping homeboy whose love for the green stuff lands him in predicament after predicament. Sitting on the stoop of Craig's rundown home, the two hilariously confront a kaleidoscopic array of gangbangers, weed dealers, crack heads, prostitutes, scheming girlfriends and neighbourhood bullies--all of whom, it should be noted, come off as sympathetic even as they are being caricatured, a true achievement in the crass, "booty call" environment of 1990s African American comedy. --Ethan Brown, Amazon.com