Cinema

By Richard Schickel.

To be young, gifted and black in America today is to live poised on a cruelly honed knife-edge. There are doubtless more opportunities than ever for bright, ambitious kids to escape the ghetto. But the chances of being wasted by random violence have also increased. In his remarkable debut film, BOYZ N THE HOOD (as in neighborhood), writer-director John Singleton, 23, maps gang-ridden South Central Los Angeles with a cartographer's cool realism. But what gives powerful resonance to his film -- whose opening was accompanied by shootings in theaters across the U.S. that left at least one dead and dozens wounded -- is his portrait of three young men struggling to keep their balance as drive-by shootings redden the night streets. Tre Styles (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is sustained by the example of a strong father, while his best friends, brothers Doughboy (Ice Cube, the rapper) and Ricky (Morris Chestnut), are betrayed by the lack of such a man. Singleton is aware that the ghetto is the chanciest of universes where one's fate can be determined by a moment's loss of temper. Or by standing on the wrong corner at the wrong time. Even in its warmest moments, there is a fearful chill in this hood's air. And on the hearts of its boyz. -- R.S.