Menace II Society

Menace II Society (1993) is the Hughes brothers' crime drama you can watch online on iFILM. Watts, Los Angeles, the early nineties. Caine has just finished high school and is already too deep in the street life that swallows almost everyone around him.

It opens with a killing in a Korean corner store, and from there the noose tightens on its own. Caine (Tyrin Turner) deals, boosts cars, and shoots back, with his friend O-Dog beside him, a kid who fires first and never counts the rounds. His girl Ronnie begs him to leave for Atlanta and start clean; the grown-ups try to reach him. But the block doesn't let go gently. Jada Pinkett Smith and Samuel L. Jackson turn up in supporting parts.

Albert and Allen Hughes shot this debut at twenty, and it landed right next to Boyz n the Hood as an unsentimental portrait of the ghetto. Hard voiceover, documentary grain, an ending that hits like a closed fist. Stream Menace II Society (1993) online on iFILM.