Review: Albert and Allen Hughes’s Menace II Society on Criterion 4K UHD

Criterion’s 4K UHD release is as comprehensive a release of the Hughes brothers’ debut as anyone could’ve hoped for.

Menace II SocietyOpening with footage from the 1965 Watts riots, Menace II Society proves that Albert and Allen Hughes grasp the spatialisation of Los Angeles’s racial hierarchies. Written before the 1992 L.A. riots and released the year after, the film brims with the anger, fear, and escalating tensions of a community that was neglected by its city, abused by its police force, and at war with itself. By the time production started on Menace II Society, the ‘92 riots had come and gone, yet the Hughes brothers insisted that no changes be made to show or even reference them in the film. To them it would have felt exploitative. Not that it would have been necessary anyway given how Menace II Society intuitively understands that what caused the Watts will continue to persist in L.A.

Centered on Caine (Tyrin Turner), who was exposed to the gangster lifestyle at a young age by his drug dealer father (Samuel L. Jackson), Menace II Society presents a despairing portrait of the Watts neighborhood of central L.A. as a den of drugs and violence. Caine is on a downward spiral, though it isn’t one that truly begins until a routine trip to a liquor store turns deadly when his buddy, O-Dog (Lorenz Tate), snaps and murders the establishment’s Korean owners (June Kyoko Lu and Toshi Toda) for treating him with suspicion. Almost 30 years after the film’s release, this lengthy sequence hasn’t lost its power to startle.

Caine remains enamored of the criminal life, but we do catch flashes of his desire to escape it throughout the film, especially as his friendship to Ronnie (Jada Pinkett Smith) starts to turn romantic. Caine is committed to toughness at all costs, and his hypermasculinity is starkly contrasted by all that Ronnie represents—a tenderness and security that’s evident in everything from the décor of her pink house to the smooth R&B that she plays.

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While Caine is nearly always surrounded by his gangster friends, the Hughes brothers pointedly show that he has positive influences in his life, from his religious grandfather (Arnold Johnson) to his straight-edge friend Sharif (Vonte Davis), who’s joined the Nation of Islam. But everything from religion to the promise of what Ronnie can give him feels alien to Caine: To him, Sharif’s proclamations of saving the black man’s soul seem like a pipe dream, while his grandfather’s moralizing is disconnected from the reality outside of his front door.

In the end, Caine’s intoxication with the criminal life is too strong, which the Hughes brothers evoke with an arsenal of swish pans, quick dollies, and rapid editing. In other films about troubled youth in the inner city, embracing religion or traditional domestic life is seen as a path toward salvation. Menace II Society, though, knowingly presents that hope as a cliché, or at least futile under the totality of the violence that plagues the streets of Watts. Unlike John Singleton’s Boyz in the Hood, which was released two years earlier, the Hughes brothers’ film sees none of these options as an impetus for real change, even on an individual level.

The Hughes’ mirroring of scenes from Caine’s childhood with those set in the present, namely ones that depict men allowing boys to handle pistols and murders committed over slights to manhood, alludes to the notion that the entanglement of violence and manhood is passed down generation to generation. Twenty-seven years separate the L.A. riots of ‘65 and ‘92, just as 27 years separate the release of Menace II Society and the widespread protests against police violence in 2020. The film has been accused of being somewhat nihilistic, but one can hardly blame the Hughes brothers for playing it as it lays and leaning into the notion that the tragedies of the past, particularly in communities like this, will inevitably repeat themselves.

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Image/Sound

Criterion’s 4K UHD release looks fantastic, benefiting from true black levels in dark interior shots and night time sequences, and an extremely high dynamic range, especially in the neon-drenched flashback scenes. Image detail is also remarkable, and is evident in skin tones and the grittiness of the Watts streets. The 7.1 surround audio is equally strong, featuring a well-balanced mix that perfectly balances dialogue and ambient background noises, while remaining robust enough to lend a gravitas to the eclectic soundtrack.

Extras

The two commentary tracks ported over from Criterion’s 1994 laserdisc edition—one with Albert Hughes, the other with his brother Allen—offer insight into the filmmakers’ surprisingly conflicted thoughts about Menace II Society upon its release, covering several scenes that they would’ve loved to do differently. There’s also an urgency as they talk about the realities of race relations and police violence in L.A. in the wake of the 1992 riots and how they tried to integrate that into the film. Also from 1994 is an interview with the brothers where they discuss the influence of Robert Townshend and Spike Lee on their work.

Two new conversations hosted by critic Elvis Mitchell nicely complement these older extras. The first of these, with Albert Hughes and screenwriter Tyger Williams, focuses on the influence of Brian DePalma’s Scarface and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and GoodFellas on Menace II Society and the filmmakers’ desire to get inside their protagonist’s head. The latter conversation, with Allen Hughes and actor/filmmaker Bill Duke, covers their collaborative process with actors and how Duke brought tension and grandiosity to a simply written scene.

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The disc also comes with deleted scenes, storyboard-to-film comparisons, the Hughes brothers’ music video for Tupac’s “Brenda’s Got a Baby,” and a selected scene commentary track with cinematographer Lisa Rinzler, who talks about how the long tracking shot during the party scene was done and her attempts to give the film a heightened sense of reality. Finally, a foldout booklet rounds out the package, with an essay by critic Craig D. Lindsey, who unpacks the film’s deglamorized look at life in South Central L.A. in the early 1990s.

Overall

With a stellar transfer and a wonderful slate of extras, Criterion’s 4K UHD release is as comprehensive a release of the Hughes brothers’ debut as anyone could’ve hoped for.

Score: 
 Cast: Tyrin Turner, Jada Pinkett Smith, Larenz Tate, Arnold Johnson, MC Eiht, Marilyn Coleman, Vonte Sweet, Clifton Powell, Glenn Plummer, Bill Duke, Samuel L. Jackson, Charles S. Dutton, Ryan Williams, June Kyoko Lu, Toshi Toda, Khandi Alexander  Director: Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes  Screenwriter: Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes, Tyger Williams  Distributor: The Criterion Collection  Running Time: 97 min  Rating: R  Year: 1993  Release Date: November 23, 2021  Buy: Video, Soundtrack

Derek Smith

Derek Smith's writing has appeared in Tiny Mix Tapes, Apollo Guide, and Cinematic Reflections.

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