Review of Friday (1995) by Chino P — 10 Aug 2009

Firstly, I must say this is one of the greatest stoner films ever. Strangely enough, I don't claim this because of the raunchy ghetto humor nor the hilarious antics of Chris Tucker.

Compositionally, this film is superb. The opening sequence tells it all: fade into a pair of shoes hanging from a telephone wire; pan down to the view of the neighborhood; pan/zoom/track into their house; introduce all the family via each individual waking moment.

Subtle humor is brilliantly composited into several areas of this film. You may need some ghetto education to make note of these. A good example would be when Craig's (Ice Cube) girlfriend calls him to yell about rumors of his infidelity. Upon close inspection, one may notice that there is another guy sleeping on her bed, completely motionless. It took me several viewings to realize this, and you bet I burst out laughing.

Each character seems to have their own theme song?whether its Dana (the beautiful Nia Long) with "I Wanna Get Next to You", or Deebo (Zeus) with his intimidating orchestral soundtrack.

To top it all off, there is (surprisingly) a very deep moral to this story. At the climactic ending, the protagonist is faced with a hard decision, and pulls a gun at the antagonist. The director fools us by showing the wrong choice first: a gunshot aimed straight at the audience. Reminiscent key scenes follow this, and after a slow fade back at the decision point, he decides not to shoot.

Pros: brilliantly written comedy, significance as a modern social commentary, Smokie!

Cons: indigestible to non-ebonic comprehension, non-smokers may not want a hit.