The Outsiders VS Boyz N The Hood

TALE OF THE TAPE

                 Title: The Outsiders                                                    Title: Boyz N The Hood

                 Tomato Meter: 64%                                                    Tomato Meter: 96%

                  IMDB Rating: 7.0                                                        IMDB Rating: 7.8

                 Starring: Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio                   Starring: Ice Cube, Cuba Gooding Jr.

                 Director: Francis Ford Coppola                                  Director: John Singleton

                 Box Office: $25.7 million                                             Box Office: $57.5 million

                 Academy: N/A                                                             Academy: 2 nominations

                 Year: 1983                                                                   Year: 1991

Poor young hoodlums growing up, facing life, death, broken homes, sibling rivalry, murder, revenge, hope and despair in their respective environments are the subjects of these two films. One gritty, one picturesque, yet both emotional.

The Outsiders has a powerful cast who would later dominate the 80's, including Tom Cruise, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez and Rob Lowe. Directed by Award winning Francis Ford Coppola, the outsiders is an adaptation from S.E. Hinton's novel of the same name. Francis conveys their struggles and the violence that surrounds them while keeping well within its PG boarders. he puts emphasis on the characters and their emotional developments. Even the violence has a sense of honor, as rival gangs settle their differences in bare knuckled rumbles rather than gunfights. There is gun-play however, and the lack of gunfights throughout the film give more emotional weight to scenes involving them.The Outsiders does finish with a sense of hope.

Boyz N The Hood takes advantage of their R rating, but doesn't push the envelope. With a strong cast of its own, including Cuba Gooding Jr., Ice Cube, Lawrence Fishburn and Angela Bassett. Boyz N The Hood tells the real, gritty, and dangerous story of growing up in Compton. The story centers on three neighborhood friends, their outlooks and potential while the weight of peer pressure, their homes, and  their environment take their toll on them. Guns are used quite frequently, giving them less emotional impact, but illustrating the violence the characters face daily. Where the Outsiders begins with a pick-up and play beginning, Boyz explores their early childhood before fast forwarding to their later high school years. Boyz N The Hood ends  with more of a disparaging feeling than the Outsiders.

Both films fail in their message of violence is bad, live in peace, as both films in their own way seem to romanticize hoodlum culture. Nor do they explain how to stop the violence when it's all around them. The only way seems to be to simply get out.

Packed full of stars, emotional, dramatic and engrossing, both films look to be evenly matched. Toe to toe, The Outsiders look to outclass Boyz In The Hood early on. But The Outsiders sense of non-violent violence proves to land all too soft on Boyz N The Hood's battle-hardened hide, causing them to go down in round 6.


Winner: Boys N The Hood