South Central

Bobby Johnson is seventeen and in a gang. He commits a murder and gets ten years. When he goes in his girlfriend is pregnant. Inside he meets other prisoners; some teach him to read and tell him it is possible to leave the gang. Bobby changes slowly. Outside, his son Jimmie is growing up in the same neighbourhood, beside the same gang. The mother is using. When Bobby comes out his son is ten and already in that life. Stephen Milburn Anderson directs and adapted the script from a novel by Donald Bakeer. Glenn Plummer, Byron Minns, Lexie Bigham and Christian Coleman are in the cast. It is an American production. The film came out in 1992, right after the events in Los Angeles. The matter it treats is whether the cycle can be broken; the film looks for its answer in individual effort. The narrative builds the prison sections on education and puts reading at the centre. The film does not make gang life attractive and gives the violence with its consequences. The narrative gathers the distance between father and son in its last section. The production is small in scale and was shot in real locations. In places the narrative turns to delivering a message and stays didactic. The ending offers hope. Its limit is the production; the acting is uneven, the pace flat, and the budget shows. Who it is for: viewers who like American street films of the nineties. Who it is not for: it is harsh, didactic, and the ending hopeful.