Going through a run of watching classic heist movies and figured it was time to Set It Off (1996). Following a quartet of friends in Los Angeles – all working as janitors with little income and different problems – they decide to rob banks to get out of their collective situation. What surprised me a bit was that even though the movie starts off with bleak social problems (cops shooting innocent black youths, exploitation of women by men, child protective services interference), it kind of becomes a few different movies as well: from the slick romance that Jada Pinkett-Smith has with yuppie bank teller Blair Underwood (complete with En Vouge soundtracked love scene) to broad comedy (the strange scene where the gang parody a Godfather style sit-down) to pumped up action flick (some spectacular heist set pieces). Directed by F. Gary Gray who would go from helming music videos (Dr Dre has a cameo as a gun runner) to working in franchise blockbusters like The Fate Of The Furious and MIB: International. All the cast are good but Queen Latifah (my favourite scenes were her throwing out CDs of the cars she stole to find good music) and Vivica A. Fox (whose character used to work in a bank and wants revenge on the establishment that fired her unfairly) have the showiest, most compelling roles. Oh yeah, and John C. McGinley is the cop on their case, pretty much playing a variation of what he did in Point Break. At the time, a box office success on the low budget of $9 million, Set It Off was entertaining and engaging, and now stands as modern heist movie classic.
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