SOURCE: Sterritt, David. “Boyz Director Revisits the 'hood in Baby Boy.” Christian Science Monitor (29 June 2001): 17.

In the following review, Sterritt offers a mixed assessment of Baby Boy, arguing that the film “breaks little new ground.”

“He got a Oedipus complex!” exclaims a streetwise character in the middle of Baby Boy, and that sums up the plot in a sentence. Sophocles should get a screenplay credit for John Singleton's new movie—or maybe Sigmund Freud, who gave modern resonance to the ancient tale of a man who murders his father, marries his mother, and slowly realizes the horror of his life.

Things are a little less grim in Baby Boy, but not much. Set in the African-American neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles, the story centers on a young man named Jody who lives with his 36-year-old mother and her new boyfriend, an ex-con who claims to have mended...