Planet Sick-Boy: http://www.sick-boy.com "We Put the SIN in Cinema"
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Since the turn of the century, there have been seven major motion pictures released on Wednesdays that didn't precede holiday weekends. Five of those seven were films targeted to urban audiences, most of them were big bags of crap (Next Friday, 3 Strikes, Backstage and Turn It Up), and the most recent doesn't come close to bucking the trend. Baby Boy is poorly written, poorly directed, poorly acted and, worst of all, has the audacity to carry on for over two hours.
Boy focuses on the life of a 20-year-old black man named Jody (R&B star/model Tyrese), who spends his days kickin' it around Crenshaw like it ain't no thang. He's a pretty likeable lad, assuming your idea of "likeable" is a man with no job, babies all over the city and not enough common sense to pull his own pants up. Jody still lives at home with his 36-year-old mother (Adrienne-Joi Johnson), where he rides his low-rider bicycle and puts together model cars in his room, which is covered with pictures of scantily clad women.
The first scene of the film brings up an interesting point about black men in America being extremely infantile (they call their mothers "Momma," their friends "boyz," and their homes "the crib"), while showing the adult Jody in his mother's womb before transitioning into a scene where the mother of his first child is having yet another of his babies aborted Yvette (Taraji P. Henson) is in pain, both mentally and physically, and wants nothing to do with her son's father.
So what does our boy do? Heads over to see his second child's mother, Peanut (Tamara LaSeon Bass). She's in the shower when he drops in, but that doesn't stop him from tearing open the shower curtain and demanding she clean the place up and make him some mo-fo food (a real charmer, this Jody). In the meantime, Jody's mom has begun to date Melvin (Ving Rhames, M-I:2), a hard-edged OG ex-con who owns a landscaping business. Jody hates Melvin's checkered past, even though, if he's lucky, he'll end up just like him. He demands Melvin show his mother respect, despite the fact that Jody gives none to any of his own bitches. There's also some hoo-ha about an older brother who was kicked out of the house when Mom dated her last gangsta boyfriend and was subsequently killed on the streets. Jody is afraid the same thing will happen to him, and there are all kinds of nightmarish scenarios depicting the same.
Boy rambles on and on, with no rhythm and virtually no purpose (Jody does eventually get a job...selling boosted women's clothes), other than to show what is supposed to be the transition of a cocky boy into a real man. I didn't buy it and don't believe his character changed in the slightest. We're talking about a guy who doesn't have a problem with hitting women, stealing, disrespecting everyone within earshot and knocking up women left and right, but then has the audacity to say, ""I ain't no killer - I can't have that on my heart," in a pre-murder prayer before he snuffs the film's only interesting character, played by Snoop Dogg. When Snoop is the highlight of your film, you've got big problems. Come to think of it, you've got problems when you cast a model as your lead character. Remember Fair Game? I didn't think so.
Okay, there's a chance I didn't get the whole thing because, after all, I am the third whitest man in America (after Bryant Gumbel and Tony Gwynn). But before you start playing the race card, keep in mind the fact I loved Boy writer/director John Singleton's first film, Boyz in the Hood, which landed him two Oscar nominations 10 years ago. Boy is supposed to be a "companion piece" to Boyz, but don't sully its good name by comparing it to this mess.
2:07 - R for strong sexuality, language, violence and some drug use
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