Critique: Film> Reviews.

Ernest R. Dickerson makes his directorial debut with Juice, a story of four black youths living in a world of Hip-Hop and violence. For them, music and the dangers of gunplay are coincided.

The two leads in the film are best friends, but have contradicting ambitions. Q (Omar Epps) has a passion to develop his turntable skills in the world, while Bishop (Tupac Shakur) is becoming tired of the harassment on the streets by the local gangsters that he goes in search of a weapon to earn respect.

The story is well paced by Dickerson: The character development is sufficient as it provokes a reaction from the viewer in regards to the glamorization of violence within the urban lifestyle. We notice the real struggles and consequences of being young, black and poor. When the characters feel the need to obtain a gun, there's a sense of desperation in attempting to take justice into their own hands. We don't agree with their methods of doing things, but we can begin to see the necessity of having a gun that the main characters believe.

Juice is very much a character-driven story, which is inspired by some excellent casting. Shakur and Epps are on top form here, each very convincing in giving their character a sense of purpose. The supporting cast of Jermaine "Huggy" Hopkins, Khalil Kain and Samuel L. Jackson is just as enthusiastic; and there's also notable some notable cameos from Hip-Hop legends Queen Latifah, EPMD, Fab Five Freddy, among others.

The story may be over-familiar to some, considering the amount of press dedicated to the inner-city connections between violence and Hip-Hop these days, but Juice is one of the most commanding films of the genre in its overall performance. It's disturbingly sympathetic.

(C) Andy Carrington, 2009.