Amazon.com video review:
Friday is the rarest specimen of African American
cinema: a 'hood movie refreshingly free of the semiseriousness and
moralism of shoot 'em up soaps such as Boyz N the Hood,
yet still true to the inner-city experience.
Scripted by rapper Ice Cube, Friday is a no-frills tale of a
typical day in the life of a pair of African American youth in South
Central. Cube plays Craig, a frustrated teen who endures the ultimate
humiliation: getting fired on his day off. Then unknown Chris Tucker
plays Smokey, a marijuana-worshipping homeboy whose love for the green
stuff lands him in predicament after predicament.
Sitting on the stoop of Craig's rundown home, the two hilariously
confront a kaleidoscopic array of gangbangers, weed dealers, crack
heads, prostitutes, scheming girlfriends, and neighborhood
bullies--all of whom, it should be noted, come off as sympathetic even
as they are being caricatured, a true achievement in the crass, "booty
call" environment of '90s African American comedy. --Ethan
Brown
