Hood films have never been known for their subtlety. Even the best ones often hammer their points
home. They have always fallen squarely
on the nurture side of the nature vs. nurture argument. Most explanations for criminality are often
spelled out in the most overt and expository manner possible. It’s as if the filmmakers don’t trust the audience
to come to the appropriate conclusions on their own. Still, somewhat vague and ambiguous characterizations
sometimes slipped through the cracks. The
randomness of street crime dictates that not every murder has a clear or
logical motive. Any otherwise “realistic”
movie about the streets would be somewhat dishonest if it ignored such a
fact. In the midst of the hood movie
onslaught of the early 1990’s, a future Hip-Hop legend would be cast as one of hood cinema's definitive sociopaths.
Juice focuses on
the lives of Bishop (Tupac Shakur), Q (Omar Epps), Raheem (Khalil Kain), and
Steel (Jermaine Hopkins). The four Harlem teens playfully dub themselves “The
Wrecking Crew.” Their days are rarely
spent in school. They divide their time
between hanging out in pool halls and wandering the streets. They endure frequent intimidation by a Puerto
Rican gang lead by the young Radames.
Growing weary of how “The Wrecking Crew” has little to no presence on the
streets, Bishop and Raheem come up with a solution: rob the local bodega and its
owner, the troublesome “Old man” Quiles.
The score will provide them with some quick cash and establish them as a
force to be reckoned with. However, what
should be a simple robbery takes a very wrong turn when Bishop’s Napoleon
complex comes bubbling to the surface.
His quest for power ultimately tears the crew apart.
Juice was one of a
number of films in the early 1990’s that would play a part in shaping the
emerging hood film subgenre. It was
directed by Ernest Dickerson, who had previously served as Spike Lee’s director
of photography. Like Boyz N the Hood, it was essentially a
coming of age tale with a dash of tragic violence thrown in. Unlike Boyz,
it didn’t tug so obviously at the audience’s heart strings. It took its inspiration from the likes of
Martin Scorcese’s naturalistic crime film Mean
Streets. The milieu was changed from
Little Italy to early 90’s Harlem and the soundtrack was changed to
Hip-Hop. Tupac Shakur, then known mostly
for his happy-go-lucky verse on Digital Undergrounds 1991 single “Same Song,”
was cast as Bishop. He won the role over
Naughty by Nature’s Treach and Digital Underground’s Money B. By the time the film was released, 2Pac’s
debut, 2Pacalypse Now, had only been
in stores for a couple of months. It
wasn’t setting the charts on fire, but songs like “Brenda’s Got a Baby” were
getting love in the streets.
As played by Tupac, Roland Bishop was a force of nature akin
to Michael Myers. No particular reason
is given for his murder spree save for his self-espoused thirst for power. The movie offers a vague clue into his home
life in a small scene which shows his jailbird father catatonically staring
into the television. The Wrecking Crews
acquirement of a snub nose revolver provides Bishop’s id with the necessary
catalyst for his violent tendencies. He
finds that he has the ability to kill without regard or conscience. Even fellow crew members are not safe from
his wrath. Tupac, in his feature film debut,
inhabits the role with every fiber of his being. His eyes have a hollow vacancy, and the
pistol becomes like an appendage to his hand.
Bishop and his gun are unmistakably one.
His descent into sociopathic behavior is all the scarier because it is
not adequately explained.
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