Juice

1992 "In the Ghettos of Harlem you don't buy respect... you earn it."
7| 1h36m| R| en
Details

Four Harlem friends -- Bishop, Q, Steel and Raheem -- dabble in petty crime, but they decide to go big by knocking off a convenience store. Bishop, the magnetic leader of the group, has the gun. But Q has different aspirations. He wants to be a DJ and happens to have a gig the night of the robbery. Unfortunately for him, Bishop isn't willing to take no for answer in a game where everything's for keeps.

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TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film
ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.
Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life
Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!
doriva_paivarj First of all Im sorry for the bad english, but english is not my native language, now about the movie..., Im a huge fan of Tupac and hip-hop culture and I was looking foward to watch this movie since I've just watched Boys N the Hood and kids, and love it, and besides that Juice's imdb's rating is 7.1 stars at this moment. I made a Huge mistake, I just lost one and a half our... poor history, the worst actors, tupac disapointing as an actor, lots of cliches and very very bad production. Really is unbeliveble that the imdb rating is 7.1, the only explanation is that only teenagers and kids are rating this movie and dont know nothing about a good movie. Dont worst your time
LadyLestat23 This movie will forever be a hood classic. Tupac has many movies, but this was his first. Think about Poetic Justice, Gang Related, Gridlock'd, Above the Rim, and Bullet. Don't be fooled, the man was just getting started.However, this will always be one of my favorites. Bishop was scary and so was Tupac in this role. Kudos to one of the best rappers of all time. Who says so? The Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame, that's who. RIP TUPAC! Your legacy continues...Juice is a 90's movie that tells the story of 4 Harlem youth that are friends until one snaps, becomes trigger-happy, and gets hooked on the thrill the gun. After seeing this many times over the years, I must say that the characters in this movie makes it worth watching. When you really dissect the roles, a lot went on between these friends.Raheem was the mediator and peacemaker, Q was the talented and ambitious one, Bishop was the hot-headed one, and Steel was the big baby of the crew. I think most people have been a part of cliques that sound just like this. I know I have, even as a female. I think the whole thing played out how it was supposed to. When you look at it from the beginning there was a contempt and jealousy from Bishop toward Q from the start. It's obvious that Q wanted to become a DJ and make something of himself. Unfortunately, Bishop didn't see that bright of a future for himself. You can really tell his hatred for Q after he won his first set at the contest, and he walks through the crowd and approaches them before they robbed Old Man Quiles. If looks could kill!! I think that's what makes this movies so easy to relate to because we've all had those snake-ish friends hanging around us knowing they were silently praying for our downfall. The same thing with Bishop hugging Raheem's mother and sister at the funeral. The same man he murdered! How twisted do you have to be to kiss the man's mother on the cheek and be there to help the family grieve? The thing is, people do it all the time. This movie just keeps it too real! It happens!!If you really think about it, Raheem was just the buffer between those two, so inevitably Bishop would remove the buffer between him and Q resulting in a final showdown. Bishop and Q was the endgame. Raheem was in the way, and Steel was just a casualty of war, just as everyone else was. Also, if you pay attention to Bishop's father in the beginning, you can tell that mental illness clearly ran in his family because his father was "crazy," which is also why it wasn't that far off base that he would eventually snap as well.All in all, this movie was very well played whether it ever gets the recognition it deserves or not.
svikasha In the wake of the release of the 2017 Tupac Shakur biopic, "All Eyes on Me", a lot of interest has been drawn to the obscure but underrated 1992 film "Juice". In this film, Tupac debuts in his one and only acting role because his life is tragically taken less than 5 years after the film's release in 1996 at the young age of 25. To his credit, Tupac portrays a struggling Harlem vagrant splendidly. Almost like a professional actor. His performance was eons better than most rapper-turned-actor's attempts at professional acting. It's a shame that this was his only role. In this film, Tupac plays Bishop, a rough street kid who feels like he has something to prove. In the opening scene of the film, a group of Puerto Rican gang members approach Bishop and confront him by asking him, "you got that much juice?" He responds with a sly, "you god damn right. Nobody **** with me". This sets the tone for the rest of the film. Bishop and his three friends Q, Raheem, and Steel grow up together in Harlem and drop out of school to engage in criminal behavior. The most remarkable thing about "Juice" is the character detail. All of the characters are accurate and lively portrayals of Harlem youth in the early 90's. The four youngsters engage in a multitude of criminal behavior ranging from robbing record stores by flirting with the female cashiers to scaring joggers at New York's public parks. The four main characters are clearly up to no good. But Q is the character who is most unsure of how deep he wants to be involved in the life of crime. Bishop and Raheem pursue the lifestyle willingly despite Raheem being the father of a young baby. Bishop on the other hand is not content to taking the straight and narrow path. In one scene, Bishop explains his philosophy to Q by explaining to him, "you gotta snap some collars and let them **********ers know you there to take them out anytime you feel like it. You gotta get the ground beneath your feet partner. Get the wind behind your back and go out in a blaze if you got to. Otherwise you ain't ****. You might as well be dead yo damn self". Compared to Bishop and Raheem, Steel and Q are a bit more geared towards the straight and narrow. However, the option to walk down the clean road is eliminated after one fateful night when the four African American youth from Harlem decide to rob a convenience store owned by an elderly Puerto Rican man who goes by the name of Fernando Quiles. Q initially wants to avoid participating in the robbery. He wants to go to a DJ competition instead. His three friends agree to let him go to the DJ competition, but only in the hopes that it will give them an alibi for their robbery. The DJ battle scene that ensues is central to the plot. It probably inspired the iconic rap battle in Eminem's "8 Mile" that is released a decade later in 2002. The most powerful moment in the film happens after the DJ competition ends when Q joins his crew to go out and rob a convenience store. In the subsequent tragic series of events, one of the four youngsters shoots the convenience store clerk in the back of his head right before everybody was about to leave. It is later revealed that the masked shooter was Bishop. Raheem confronts Bishop for shooting the clerk, and Raheem himself gets shot by Bishop. Bishop is clearly past the point of no return and Q witnesses Bishop attend Raheem's funeral. He sees Bishop talk to Raheem's sister and mother and sees the single mother and baby that Raheem's death left behind. To add insult to injury, Q also loses the DJ competition that he was attending the night of the robbery by default and is frustrated with his consolation prize of a Panasonic boom box. Bishop, Q, and Steel are clearly no longer friends. But there friendship turns dangerous when Bishop confronts Q at their high school and tells his former friend, "You know what? Last time you said that, I was kinda trippin', right? But now, you're right. I am crazy. And you know what else? I don't give a ****. I don't give a **** about you. I don't give a **** about Steel. I don't give a **** about Raheem, either. I don't give a **** about myself. Look, I ain't ****. And you less of a man than me, so as soon as I figure you ain't gon be ****, *pow*! So be it. You remember that, mother*. 'Cause I'm the one you need to be looking out for... *partner*!". After this tense exchange, Bishop ends up killing Steel which sets the stage for the final confrontation between Bishop and Q. The final moments of the film is a struggle between the two former friends which culminates tragically. It is a fitting homage and portrayal of a street vagrant's life in Harlem during the early 90's.
Steve Pulaski Juice is yet another hood film that presents itself honestly and with a good sense of realism. It doesn't capitalize on anything but the reality and the dangers of growing up in a city lead by gun violence and senseless murders. In the mix of it all are four Harlem boys all portrayed effectively by Omar Epps, Tupac Shakur, Jermaine "Huggy" Hopkins, and Khalil Kain.The boys call themselves "The Wrecking Crew," and are trying to survive with what they have in a dangerous town. They spend most of their time at an arcade or a record shop when they cut school a little early, most of the time being harassed by the police or a gang in the process. One day, one of the boys named Bishop (Shakur) buys a gun, and convinces the other three members to come along in stickup. They rob the store, and from that moment on things go from bad to worse for the boys.There is a subplot involving another one of the gang's members nicknamed "Q" (Epps) who is an aspiring DJ, and has a big DJ competition the night of the planned robbery.Writer and Director Ernest R. Dickerson has worked as the cinematographer on various Spike Lee films, and this marks his very first shot behind the camera. While Juice is passable and well-made, it suffers by comparison with film's made by Lee like Do the Right Thing and School Daze. It also can be compared to Boyz N The Hood, another excellent hood film by John Singleton.I believe because of Spike Lee films and works of John Singleton is the reason why Juice has slipped through the cracks. It has a following, but because of strong critical acclaim surrounding the other pictures and this one just having mixed reviews is the reason why this isn't remembered as well as the other films.The moral of Juice is great about a psychological change one person can go through in a matter of time, the message about gun violence, and strong friendships being tested. However - this is taken in a more clichéd manner than any other hood film I've seen. We don't know a whole lot about the characters, and we don't know about they're raised. We don't get the parental backstory which is what Boyz N The Hood was cluttered with.I'm recommending Juice for its morals, its sense of realism, and its subject matter. However, the delivery is a little askew, and the four boys aren't developed as well as they could be. This is still one more realistic hood film that many should make time to see, but this film only reaches the level of average to decent while all of Singleton's films surpassed the above average mark.Starring: Omar Epps, Tupac Shakur, Jermaine "Huggy" Hopkins, Khalil Kain, Samuel L. Jackson. Directed by: Ernest R. Dickerson.