SOURCE: Kauffmann, Stanley. Review of Boyz N the Hood, by John Singleton. New Republic (2 September 1991): 26–27.

In the following review, Kauffman offers a mixed assessment of Boyz N the Hood, criticizing the “patently fabricated” structure of the film.

Boyz N the Hood (Columbia) is the latest in the New Black Wave, written and directed by the 23-year-old John Singleton. Hood means neighborhood. The picture centers on the part of Los Angeles where Singleton and some of his cast grew up—not ghetto-slummy but nonetheless a war zone.

Singleton tells the story of a black youth growing to late adolescence amid drugs and drug-related crime, trying to keep straight under the tutelage of a father who is strong on discipline. (His divorced mother agrees early on that it would be better for her son to be raised by a male.) Around the growing boy are his friends, male and female...