Juice

This is the potent, if flawed, debut of Ernest R Dickerson, who earned his director's spurs after serving as cinematographer on some of Spike Lee's most incendiary works. And you can almost hear Lee's feeling for the language of the street in the tale of four black youths and a gun. Omar Epps gets top billing, playing a confused teenager who wants to be a DJ, but finds himself inexorably drawn into the world of crime and murder when he reluctantly joins his pals on a store heist. Epps is impressive among a then largely unknown cast, although the late rapper Tupac Shakur steals the show in one of his first films. Dickerson struggles to maintain a consistent tone, but rarely has the 'hood looked so desolate.