With gang violence erupting in the streets of Haiti, perhaps it is my responsibility as an armchair philosopher/movie critic to study some of cinema’s most famous examples of the street gang. Movies and gangs have never ceased to cross paths: witness one of the milestones of the art form, D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation,” which spotlighted one of the most notorious clandestine groups in U.S. history, the Ku Klux Klan. The ’30s and ’40s saw an obsession with the street gang par excellence, the Mafia, with classics like “Scarface” (the original, not the rapper favorite starring Al Pacino), “Public Enemy” (not the political hip-hop group), and “Little Caesar” (not the pizza chain, although I’m sure Edward G. Robinson loved him some crazy bread). Everything since has basically been either a throwback to that golden era or a transition to the now common “gangsta” film (that genre’s nadir being Three 6 Mafia’s straight-to-video “Choices,” featuring the talent of Project Pat, who’s currently reppin’ North Memphis from his prison cell). These films are a bit more recent, meaning you’ll get a certain gritty realism that’s lacking from, say, Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” video. No dancing, knife-wielding ruffians here, only truly gripping street gang celluloid. Oh, lets not forget, “West Side Story” doesn’t count regardless of what the drama major on your freshman floor told you about the intricacies of dance. We crave blood and preferably firearms.

City of God (2002)
Directed by: Katia Lund, Fernando Meirelles
Starring: Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino

One could talk about this movie’s relationship to Brazilian cinema and the present day socioeconomic situation which it may or may not be referencing…but I don’t really know anything about that, besides that the former is usually sexy and the latter is in pretty bad shape. Since this is a rental picks about street gangs, I’ll stick with the nitty-gritty: The City of God is essentially a socialist-modernist style housing project outside of beautiful Rio de Janerio gone to hell (but then again, what socialist-modernist style housing project didn’t go this way?). The story is based on an (ostensibly true) novel by Paulo Lins, a former inhabitant of the slums, and it follows the maturation of young Rocket growing up in the slums between the sixties and eighties. Rocket finds himself continually embroiled and caught in between the machinations of the gangs of the slum (his brother is a hood), particularly Lil’ Ze, a diabolic child of Rocket’s age who rises up to become head of the slum. The great fun begins when Lil’ Ze crosses the one character in the movie who had made it out of the slums, Knockout Ned. Knockout Ned is pissed, and in rallying support against Lil’ Ze a gigantic gang war breaks out, full of some great shootouts and personality conflicts. Throughout the whole thing our protagonist is an observer, an aspiring photographer who ends up on neither side and yet in the middle of both. Additionally, by placing Rocket outside of the main conflict, Lund and Meirelles feed us the movie in snapshots, in “stories” following chronologically but each focusing on a different character. And of course, there’s a huge climax, but I’m not going to tell you who wins. “City of God” is worth at least a rental if you can find it; it is often hard to watch (e.g. violence against children), but it’s a great gang movie and a bit different than the traditional American fare.

Gangs of New York (2002)
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz

To be honest, most of this bloated “epic” is absolute crap, but the gang scenes are incredible. If you can endure Leo’s faux Irish brogue and Diaz’s “ludicrously good-looking street girl” routine (see “Moulin Rouge” and “From Hell” for more examples), there are some spectacular visuals to be had. The Five Points neighborhood is a sleazy, multi-tiered masterpiece of set construction, with hordes of bloodthirsty gangs swarming every crack and crevice. It’s on this turf that the “Native Americans” and the “Dead Rabbits,” who are Anglo and Irish, for clarification, beat the holy hell out of each other with an assortment of cudgels, knives, and household objects. Yeah, sure, there’s that whole “you killed my father, prepare to die” revenge plot and blah blah blah, but what really counts here is the down-and-dirty, no-holds-barred, to-the-bone, similar three-word-phrase violence. Study it well, and one day you can draw comparisons to future made-for-TV movies about the alarming street violence of today.

Boyz ‘N the Hood (1991)
Directed by: John Singleton
Starring: Cuba Gooding, Jr., Ice Cube, Morris Chestnut

“Boyz ‘N the Hood” or “Menace II Society”? It’s always a toss-up as to which of these landmark films should come first, but in this case age is the deciding factor. John Singleton’s acclaimed drama was one of the first of its kind. Spike Lee had paved the way beforehand with “Do the Right Thing” (by no means a gang movie, but still highly recommended), but Singleton brought everything together with his all-encompassing look at the streets of South Central L.A. The story is a bit trite: three childhood friends take different directions in life. Tre (Gooding) hits the books, with a Spartan father (Lawrence Fishburne) watching his every move, Ricky (Chestnut) hones his football skills, and Doughboy (Ice Cube in his best performance; almost makes you forget “Anaconda” and “Ghosts of Mars”) slangs dope, rolls on dubs, bangs hos-you get the picture. Okay, so it’s about as stereotypical a view of African-American youth as you can get, but the stories and images contained in this film are unforgettable. So unforgettable, in fact, that the dead body scene and good-natured barbecues were hilariously spoofed in the conglomerate satire “Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood.” And gang violence? It’s all here, with the attendant themes of retaliation, peer pressure, and responsibility.

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