Frankie (Vivica A Fox) has a bank job — until someone she knows from South Central LA holds her at gun-point, the attempted robbery turns into a bloodbath, and the boss sends her packing. Life gets much harder. Her homegirls (Jada Pinkett, Queen Latifah, Kimberly Elise) fix her up with the office-cleaning firm where they work nights, but it’s not long before they hatch a plan to capitalize on Frankie’s qualifications, in particular her inside knowledge of bank security procedures.
In the wake of all those gun-toting white women and black men, black women were overdue their own loaded action adventure. This noir Thelma & Louise rekindles some of the subversive fire of ’70s exploitation flicks, although it’s far too polished to have come from the Corman stable. The intense heist sequences show a command of thriller dynamics that’s right up there with the best of them, but director F Gary Gray is equally convincing on the character front, eliciting funny, grounded performances from the four women (Latifah notably refuses to caricature her lesbian role). It’s an energizing spree for the Girlz n the hood.
The movie surprised and moved me: I expected a routine action picture and was amazed how much I started to care about the characters… It creates a portrait of the lives of these women that’s so observant and informed.”
Roger Ebert
Latifah brings an extraordinary presence to the proceedings, and not just in her no-fuss approach to Cleo’s sexual orientation. Both in the way that she scowls and glares at her adversaries and the way that she delights in her friends’ company and her new-found job skills, Latifah brings something new and startling to the traditional screen depiction of women, something that comes across as so completely indifferent to how she’s perceived by any camera or viewer.
Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle
Media Partner
F. Gary Gray
Jada Pinkett, Vivica A. Fox, Queen Latifah, Kimberly Elise
USA
1996
English
Indigenous & Community Access
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Credits
Producer
Dale Pollock, Oren Koules
Screenwriter
Takashi Bufford, Kate Lapier
Cinematography
Marc Reshovsky
Editor
John Carter
Original Music
Christopher Young
Production Design
Robb Wilson King
90s, Baby!
Ten years. 11 weeks. 90 films from the 1990s. This summer, 90’s Baby! takes a deep dive into a defining decade of cinema.
Casino
Revisiting the wise guy milieu for the third (but not the final) time, Scorsese tells the story of Ace Rothstein and Nicky Santoro (Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci), two New York hoodlums who become major players in the history of Las Vegas.
Ghost in the Shell
This seminal anime which inspired James Cameron and the Wachowskis, anticipates how AI technology encroaches on the human domain in ways we can scarcely comprehend. "A work of profound and melancholic beauty." Daily Telegraph
La Haine
This angry French thriller about alienated kids (a skinhead, an Arab, and an African) in the working class outskirts of Paris plays like a cross between Do the Right Thing and Mean Streets. French cops turned their backs on the red carpet at Cannes.
Crash
Sex drive, David Cronenberg-style. The car-crash fetishists who orbit Cronenberg's metrosexual Toronto (they include James Spader, Holly Hunter, and Deborah Unger) obsessively seek a fusion of metal and flesh... Fender bender as the ultimate orgasm.
Trainspotting
Danny Boyle's blistering movie was a sensation in 1996: a kick in the teeth of old school British kitchen sink realism, it fearlessly transformed the dire circumstances of Edinburgh heroin addicts into an experience by turns exhilarating and devastating.
Fargo
Have the Coen brothers ever made a more satisfying movie than Fargo? This grisly comedy pits one of cinema's most pure-hearted cops (Frances McDormand's pregnant cop, Marge Gunderson) against the machinations of weak and mercenary men.
Lone Star
John Sayles's modern day Western is a murder mystery which draws sheriff Chris Cooper to investigate two of his predecessors, the notoriously corrupt Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson), and his own father, Buddy (Matthew McConaughey).
90s Mystery Movie + Trivia Night
And now for a shot in the dark... We're not announcing the Mystery Movie in advance, so you'll have to take a leap of faith. We can say it was released between January 1990 and January 2000, and it's not already showing elsewhere in this series. As an added enticement we're going to throw in a 90s movie trivia night with your ticket — plus prizes!
Princess Mononoke
A mystical fight between humans and the Animal Gods of the forest. Ashitaka, the last prince of a dying race, struggles to find a way for both sides to co-exist. But the fighting only becomes more and more bloody and all hope seems to be lost…
Gummo
Harmony Korine was just 24 when he made Gummo. It's become a cult favourite as much for its singularity as anything else: it's a strange, misshapen beast, a slice of beat poetry translated into experimental film.
Jackie Brown
Take half a dozen characters who know they're in a fix, and give them half a million dollars to fight over. Tarantino's crime movie (his best) transcends genre in large part because in Pam Grier and Robert Forster it gives us people we truly care about.
The Big Lebowski
The Coens' whacky, warped slacker generation riff on Raymond Chandler, a shaggy dog story which delights in going sideways at every turn. Jeff Bridges is the Dude, and what he really wants is to get his rug back...