Underplayed Gems

Baby Boy (2001)

Baby Boy poster
Directed by
John Singleton
Genre
drama film, romance film, crime film, hood film, coming-of-age film
Country
United States
Runtime
2h 09m
Rated
R
Rating
7.1 of 10 from 364 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
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How it feels

A 20-year-old man in South Central Los Angeles navigates relationships, responsibility, and survival. He balances life with his mother, his girlfriend, and his ex while trying to figure out his future.

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What happens

Baby Boy is a 2001 American coming-of-age hood drama film directed, written and produced by John Singleton, and starring Tyrese Gibson, Snoop Dogg, Ving Rhames, Omar Gooding, A.J. Johnson and Taraji P. Henson. The film follows Joseph "Jody" Summers (Gibson), a 20-year-old bike mechanic as he lives and learns in his everyday life in South Central Los Angeles. The film was originally written with rapper-actor Tupac Shakur in mind to play Jody; Shakur had previously worked with Singleton on Poetic Justice. However, following Shakur's murder in 1996, Singleton decided to replace Shakur with R&B artist Tyrese Gibson. Additionally, the role of Rodney was originally written for Ice Cube, who had worked with Singleton on Boyz n the Hood and Higher Learning. The film marked the feature acting debut of Gibson and provided Henson with her first prominent role. Released in the United States on June 27, 2001, the film received predominantly positive reviews from critics and audiences, with many deeming it as Singleton's best film since Boyz n the Hood. The film is also the final feature film written by Singleton as he did not write any of his later feature-length directorial projects before his death in April 2019. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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