Menace II Society (1993) [The Criterion Collection]

Director: Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes
Writer: Allen Hughes (story), Albert Hughes (story), Tyger Williams (story)
Stars: Tyrin Turner, Larenz Tate, June Kyoto Lu

Directors Albert and Allen Hughes and screenwriter Tyger Williams were barely into their twenties when they sent shock waves through American cinema and hip-hop culture with this fatalistic, unflinching vision of life and death on the streets of Watts, Los Angeles, in the 1990s. There, in the shadow of the riots of 1965 and 1992, young Caine (Tyrin Turner) is growing up under the influence of his ruthless, drug-dealing father (Samuel L. Jackson, in a chilling cameo) and his loose-cannon best friend, O-Dog (Larenz Tate), leading him into a spiral of violent crime from which he is not sure he wants to escape, despite the best efforts of his grandparents and the steadfast Ronnie (Jada Pinkett). Fusing grim realism with a propulsively stylish aesthetic honed through the Hughes brothers’ work on rap videos, Menace II Society is a searing cautionary tale about the devastating human toll of hopelessness.

Extras:
- New 4K digital restoration of the directors' cut of the film, supervised by director of photography Lisa Rinzler and codirector Albert Hughes, with 7.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- Original 2.0 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio
- Two audio commentaries from 1993 featuring directors Albert and Allen Hughes
- New selected-scene commentary featuring Rinzler
- Gangsta Vision, a 2009 featurette on the making of the film
- New conversation among Albert Hughes, screenwriter Tyger Williams, and film critic Elvis Mitchell
- New conversation among Allen Hughes, actor and filmmaker Bill Duke, and Mitchell
- Interview from 1993 with the directors
- Music video from 1991 for 2Pac's "Brenda's God a Baby," directed by the Hughes brothers
- Deleted scenes
- Film-to-storyboard comparison
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing




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