Hip Hop Hood – Im Viertel ist die Hölle los (1996)

Hip Hop Hood – Im Viertel ist die Hölle los: Directed by Paris Barclay. With Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Tracey Cherelle Jones, Chris Spencer. A parody of several U.S. films about being in the ‘Hood’, for instance Boyz n the Hood (1991), South Central (1992), Menace II Society (1993), Higher Learning (1995) and Juice (1992).

“Although one certainly cannot say Gentlemanu0026#39;s Agreement is not passionate in its aim to uncover the invisible cloak of anti-Semitism in post-war America, the execution of that objective could have used slightly more dramatic tension and immediacy.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eReleased the same year and touching on the same subject was Edward Dmytryku0026#39;s Crossfire, which dealt with anti-Semitism at its extremes: murder with anti-Semitism as the motive. Gentlemanu0026#39;s Agreement takes a more humanistic and subtle approach–one that is too subtle at times. Where Crossfire dropped the bomb of anti-Semitism into the laps of the audience, Gentlemanu0026#39;s Agreement gives it to you in periodic shots in the arm in the form of a sermon, and each one says the exact same thing: anti-Semitism is bad. (But we knew that.) Yes, the message is an important one, but feeding it to the audience in a manner that is literally shoving it down our throats every few minutes doesnu0026#39;t help the digestion any.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAlso lacking in Gentlemanu0026#39;s Agreement is a three-dimensional protagonist. Pecku0026#39;s crusading writer who masquerades as a Jew is simply too zealous and unswerving for his own good. He has no faults, no inner conflicts and no doubts about himself. Whether heu0026#39;s being shunned by bigots or Dorothy McGuire, heu0026#39;s such a straight-shooter you know what heu0026#39;s going to do before he does: the right thing right away.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThereu0026#39;s no real dramatic arc in the story, with the entire weight of the movie resting on the torrid on-again-off-again love affair between Peck and McGuire. She symbolizes the hypocrisy and passiveness of the everyday American on anti-Semitism, and he points it out to her every chance he gets-and thatu0026#39;s all. It pretty much rambles on the same dramatic level all throughout the picture, dividing its time between love scenes and sermons, most of which are indistinguishable from one another.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn the end, the important message and the overall entertainment value of the picture suffers from this redundancy.”