Squeeze

I imagine that it must still theoretically be possible to breathe life into the tired conventions of the hood picture, but at this late date it would require a great deal more invention and perspicacity than first-time director and "anti-violence media arts organization" employee Robert Patton-Spruill currently seems able to muster. Stop me if you've heard this one before: three fundamentally decent inner-city kids become involved with a local gang and quickly find themselves in over their--oh, that'll do, eh? I wouldn't deny that action flicks, romantic comedies, erotic thrillers, and so forth often suffer from a similar narrative monotony, but even at their worst they generally inspire a bit more variety than the standard "drugs bad/violence bad/absent fathers bad/oppressive capitalistic yoke of white America bad" platitudes that suffuse this genre. Squeeze's lead actors--Tyrone Burton, Eddie Cutanda, and Phuong Duong--do creditable work, and the film ends more hopefully than is typical of the genre, but that's about all that I can say in its defense. Actually, I liked this even better the first time I saw it...when it was called Boyz N the Hood. Not recommended. (M. D'Angelo)