Hangin' with the Homeboys

Four friends from the Bronx live their aimless lives. After getting thrown out of a party, they head into Manhattan. Tom McNeal (Mario Joyner) is a failed actor working as a telemarketer. His best friend Willie Stevens (Doug E. Doug) is jobless. Johnny (John Leguizamo) and Vinny (Nestor Serrano) are Puerto Ricans but Vinny, real name Fernando, pretends to be Italian. Race, sex, money, and life in general are the constants in their adventures in the New York night.

The racial tension and conflicted friendships are really interesting. The indie directing from Joseph Vasquez needs a little more work. With some improvements, he could be an interesting new voice but he passes away soon after this movie. The story does have a voice but its comedic tone is too broad sometimes. It takes away from the serious real slice of life aspect. He needs to play up the tension in some of the more devastating scenes. It also needs more music which would support this drama from the streets. This is an intriguing indie from a new voice that was silenced before his time.

To me, this movie seems less of a "comedy which makes you think", and more of a powerfully in depth character study, which is always making you laugh. But enough pigeon-holing.

This movie is all characters. The key element, for mine, is the symmetry between them. Four guys. Two black guys, two Hispanic. Two with (pathetic) jobs, two without. Two with more than women on their minds, two without. Because the symmetrical dynamic is always switching, we are always privy to meaningful dialogue, and witness powerful confrontations. That is, the director doesn't just make his point in the first 30 minutes, but is always reevaluating his characters, and their struggles.

Each viewer will no doubt have a favourite character, and his journey will be of most interest and focus. The beauty of this movie, however, is that none of the characters are developed at the expense of another. All are richly detailed, and, if you are like me, your focal character may change with every viewing.

None of the characters are overly likeable; we are always confronted with scenes which really demonstrate their failings and shortcomings. Herein lies the strength of the film. Unlike so many other "cool" and "wacky" comedies, these characters have real depth, and we can't. as honest viewers, think any one of the characters are summed up by the words "cool" or "wacky" or any other simplistic assessment that can easily be applied to characters in so many other movies (and fairly, too). They are all distinct in many ways. The most notable example is each character's technique in dealing with the inherent racism of their society. The most fascinating character here is Vinnie, as he chooses rather than confronting this difficult problem, to deny it even applies to him: "He thinks he's Italian".

My only request when seeing this movie, is not to fall into the trap of missing an appreciation of its depth. Sure, it's got a "cool" title, they just cruise around doing cool stuff ("Jose sent me" is such a good idea!), and they say cool one liners. But beyond that, the characters are at once frustrating and liberating, enjoyable and unlikeable, but most of all, they are all very human, very real.

I starting watching this on Comedy Central and assumed "oh, a film about some guys partying in the Bronx...i'll give it a whirl." I was not expecting a curiously sincere, although somewhat slap-stick, film about class differences in NYC.

The four characters represent the spectrum of what any struggling urban area would produce: a loaner who blames his race on his inability to thrive in society, an actor who tries but eventually fails to make his movie dreams a reality, a gigolo who denies his often maligned heritage in order to court women, and a genuinely earnest stock-boy who secretly desires to do what few in his position are able to: leave the monotony of dead-end beginnings and go to college and experience the world.

After each character is introduced, the film follows the journey of the men from areas of the Bronx (where beer bottles are thrown at the car after a protective father hears one of the men whistling at his daughter) to Midtown Manhattan, where the group partake in some harmless pre-Giuliani peep-show fun.

I rarely comment on films, but I thoroughly enjoyed this 'Hunt's Point Odyssey'. Some of the messages the film tries to convey are done so unrealistically, however, some of the scenes are moving and authentic (an interrogation scene involving a racist Italian subway cop who discredits the gigolo's purported identity by reacquainting him with his given Hispanic name on a driver's license, in an attempt to further emblaze immovable class lines).

Many cities contain areas with steep social and economic gradations, but none compare to NYC. It was entertaining to watch the small victories and defeats of each of these men who are somewhat pathetic, but all share common goal of enjoying themselves. Their journey is a painful reminder of the difficulty inherent in trying to escape the oft-referred realizations of each of their 'seemingly inescapable and meager' respective destinies.

Most (if not all) of the main actors grew up in NYC, and I think that helps to add a sense of realism to their performance.

If you have an open mind and don't mind the unmistakable sound of early 90s rap soundtracks, get this film. Perhaps you will enjoy it as much as I did.

Hangin' with the Homeboys (1991)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Willie (Doug E. Doug) is a black man living on welfare who doesn't see the need for a job because he'll just be a slave to the white man. Tom (Mario Joyner) is an actor trying to make it big, although he doesn't have the talent to do so. His biggest role to date was almost getting a part in the movie Rain Man. Fernando (Nestor Serrano) is a Puerto Rican who pretends to be Italian so that he can get all the women he wants. Johnny (John Leguizamo) is the youngest of the group and he's also a virgin. These seem like four typical people but they are best friends who decide to spend Friday night in Manhattan.

The four friends leave the Bronx heading for Manhattan in hopes of finding some women and wild parties but their night starts off on the wrong track when they wind up at the wrong party and are thrown out on the streets. After wrecking their car, they hit the subway and head to the city where they try to encounter more women and more parties yet nothing seems to be going right. Weighting down the situation is that all four men are having various sorts of problems and when no one else is around the best thing to do is take it out on your friends, which just leads to more problems and more fights.

Hangin' With the Homeboys was released back in 1991 but died a quick death at the box office. This was probably due to the other urban film that year, Boyz N the Hood being a big success so that left this title out in the cold but over the past few years the film has gained a cult following. I wasn't expecting too much out of the film but after viewing it I must admit to now being in that cult group. It's wonderful whenever you enter a film with low expectation but leave it finding a terrific little gem that will hopefully get new fans thanks to this DVD release.

The film was written and directed by Joseph B. Vasquez and his screenplay is something very unique because there are several messages in the film yet he never bashes he viewer over the head with them. Each of the four characters are given their own problems and the film pushes them towards an answer yet the movie doesn't rely on that message and the film ends abruptly with nothing really solved. The biggest highlight of the screenplay is the wonderful dialogue that easily rivals the stuff written by Tarantino. The dialogue brings the four characters to life and while there isn't anything too original here, the dialogue is so refreshing that it's like hearing this stuff for the first time.

All of the dialogue is so natural that it seems this is a documentary rather than an actual film. All the scenes in the movie seem so fresh and real that it seems the actors are improvising rather than speaking from a script. The perfect example of this is a wonderful scene where three of the friends are bashing another member for never having sex. The way the dialogue is given is something that will remind any male viewer of conversations they had with their own friends. Another wonderful section is some fake "ghetto fights", which are staged by the characters to scare the preppy white people that surrounds them in the world.

Bringing this dialogue to life are four wonderful performances and it's no shock that all four actors have gone on to make names for themselves. Doug E. Doug steals the show as the welfare black man refusing to work for the white man who keeps trying to put him down. Everything from his fast talking to his wacky facial expressions just helps bring his character to life. John Leguizamo also turns in wonderful work as the depressed virgin who's always taking heat from his friends. Joyner and Serrano also do nice work in the film.

Hangin' With the Homeboys certainly deserves its cult following and I'm sure it'll get even bigger over the years. I'm sure twenty years from now people will look back on this film the same way they do Diner today. Director/writer Vasquez only made four films before his untimely death and that's a shame because of the wonderful dialogue he brought to his films. This is certainly the film he'll be remembered for and it's a film any male should be able to relate to. We've all had those guys night out and this film brings some of those highlights to life.

I have to agree with Jason's review, Hangin' with the Homeboys is an excellent and extremely funny film.

It is very reminiscent of Spike Lee's early movies in that it has a very personal feel. I noticed that in the end credits Vasquez appears to send a 'shout out' to friends he grew up with who I assume he had lost contact with. I suspect that Vasquez based a number of the characters and incidents in this film on his neighbourhood pals.

The strength of the film is that despite the fact that Vasquez deals with some very important issues, he balances everything perfectly with great expertise. This is not just a comedy (although it is extremely funny), it is also a very intelligent and thought provoking film and it is clear that Vasquez would have had a bright future.

The acting is excellent and despite this being a loud and brash film at times, there are some very subtle moments that will result in you remembering moments from this film weeks later.

This film deserves to be seen and enjoyed by more people.