BIASES: mid 20s black male; frustrated screenwriter who favors action, comedy, and glossy, big budget movies over indie flicks, kiddie flicks, and weepy Merchant Ivory fare

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BABY BOY

MOVIE BIASES: The hood flick is dead, but you have to give John Singleton the benefit of the doubt.
MAJOR PLAYERS: Tyrese (singer), Omar Gooding (TV's The Smart Guy), Ving Rhames (Don King), and writer/producer/director John Singleton (Shaft).

After a long and torturous '90s, the hood flick genre had finally extinguished itself. The blame/reason for it being can be laid at the feet of John Singleton, whose seminal 1991 classic "Boyz N The Hood" set off a rash of cheap knockoffs and imitations that never approached his Oscar nominated work. One would think that with "Baby Boy," his self-proclaimed follow-up to "Boyz," Singleton risks re-igniting the genre - or putting the last bit of dirt on its grave. However, as an uneven yet thoroughly realistic and entertaining companion piece to "Boyz," "Baby Boy" kinda grows (up) on you.

Jody (Tyrese) is a 20 year old mama's boy in the worst way. Unemployed, careless, living with his mother, and a father two times, he flits between his girlfriend/ babymomma Yvette (Taraji P. Henson) and his other babymomma Peanut (Tamara LaSeon Bass). Encroaching on the home front is an OG around-the-way style landscape business owner named Melvin (Rhames), an old school roughneck who makes time with Jody's mother Juanita (underexposed A.J. Johnson). As we watch Jody bounce around from his violently principled homie Sweetpea (Gooding) to starting a fledgling boosted clothing business as well as between his babymommas (and various other random women), the question we want to know is will Baby Boy EVER grow up?

Tyrese is an enigmatic lead. While his casting blatantly panders to the doe-eyed, impressionable young female set (um, there just aren't enough shirtless shots of Tyrese in this movie), the R&B singer is not a complete failure in the title role. While there are some moments it's clear he's out of his depth, indulging in some ridiculous overacting, his quieter moments of indecision, stagnation, and emasculation really work. But, like this movie, the performance is uneven. Omar Gooding's gregarious yet violently likable Sweetpea is instantly believable, shedding his cuddly sitcom persona far behind. But the showstopper is my new REEL DEAL Crush, relative newcomer Taraji P. Henson. Besides being eminently adorable with her girl-next-door sexiness, Henson is a white hot talent with range and skill to spare. As the emotionally torn, hot-blooded #1 babymomma Yvette, Henson embodies the fine line between love and hate her functionally dysfunctional relationship with Jody straddles. She gets full use of her formidable range in this role. Yes, Snoop Dogg is in the movie, but just serves to annoy us and get in the way. Ving Rhames is, of course, the man - and not afraid to let it ALL hang out, too. And it's good to see underutilized talent like A.J. Johnson ("House Party" - and still lookin' FOINE) get some work.

But what's really going on here? Having been raised by a single black mom myself, I can appreciate Singleton's tackling of the subject of fatherless sons. But with the other huge, involving themes of fatherhood, the complexities of inner city love, rape, commitment, infidelity, etc. a lot gets muddled in the clutter. We, like the children in this movie, are caught in the crossfire as the leads of this film go back and forth. While there is no doubt that Jody is a world class underachiever of questionable morality, you do kinda root for the guy. Is it Tyrese's low-key likeability? Is it Yvette's (foolish) unswerving love for him? Throughout this sexually graphic and entertaining flick, something in it keeps you in Jody's corner, even despite his backwards logic and thin morality.

The problem Singleton has, and may always have, is that this movie will be (rightfully so) compared to "Boyz N The Hood." At 23 a decade ago, he may have made the best movie of his career, the one that may always shadow his future work. In that case, "Baby Boy" falls short, mostly because it's too scattered and lacks the focus of "Boyz". But the raw energy of the dialogue, situations, and the personalities all remind us of people we know (or claim we don't know). That familiarity and depth of subject matter, no matter how overly ambitious Singleton is here again ("Higher Learning," anyone?) makes "Baby Boy" relevant and entertaining. Let's just hope that "Baby Boy" doesn't spawn any inferior, illegitimate siblings.

@@@ REELS
(THREE REELS)
It's pretty hot - go give it a shot.

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