It’s Friday and Craig [Ice Cube] doesn’t have anything to do, so he’s hanging out in the neighbourhood with his friend Smokey [Chris Tucker]. While joking and enjoying the day Craig and Smokey end up smoking off all of Big Worm’s [Faizon Love] weed that Smokey was supposed to be selling. Now they owe him money and they are looking for how to get it before Big Worm kills them.

This movie really isn’t any cinematic genius, and I felt like I needed to step away from all of the true gems of the 90s as I’ve been going through in recent weeks, especially after watching Sam Mendes’ ‘American Beauty’. The movie introduced us to one of the most annoying black actors around today – Chris Tucker – and he just doesn’t want to leave. However this movie wasn’t made because of the acting talent on board.

The film takes a situation like a black neighbourhood and decides to satirize it in a really good way. Not many films take a positive look on the black neighbourhoods in America and try to make it look like a real community, other than maybe a Spike Lee film, which is something that this movie does well. While watching this movie you realize how these communities are exactly like how the white suburbs are portrayed as well; you have the children causing havoc, the woman who is flaunting herself and cheating on her husband while he’s off at work, and the weird ‘maybe gay’ neighbour next door.

Chris Tucker’s character is loud and annoying just like all the other ones he plays, the only reason people liked him here is because it was his first leading role. So we had the stupid idea that this guy is funny, and playing the loud dumb black guy so well, only to find out five years later that he can’t do anything else. Even QT couldn’t get him to change his character when he was in ‘Jackie Brown‘, so his solution was to kill him.

The movie sports some really hilarious characters for us to enjoy on the side, and to feed Ice Cube and Chris Tucker with ample ammunition. There is Deebo [Tommy Lister] the crazy dude who does what he wants and knocks out whoever tries to do otherwise, and Pastor Clever [Bernie Mac] who is the most open pastor I’ve ever seen who has no qualms with puffing some weed and committing some cardinal sins. Personally, I found Bernie Mac straight up hilarious. And since I haven’t seen this movie since I was in high school, I totally forgot that he was in this movie. This character reminded me slightly of Jangle Leg in ‘Life‘, due to the small part he played and how for just those few minutes he made me laugh at some great comedy. Deebo was more of a silly character who made us laugh at the situation and how ridiculous this guy acted and how everyone else was acting because of him, watching Craig and Smokey hide all their valuables every time he came around so that he wouldn’t take them just to see Deebo force Smokey into robbing the neighbour’s house was down right hilarious.

So overall, you have to know what your getting into. No great cinema but some laugh out loud fun here. A thoroughly enjoyable 90 minutes. And a great addition after seeing some stoner films this summer like Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay and Pineapple Express this a fun look back at what it was like a little over a decade ago.

IMDB says 6.9/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 80%

I say 7.0/10