Shot in 1992, the movie “Juice,” directed by Ernest R. Dickerson and starring Tupac Shakur, Omar Epps, Khalil Kain, and Jermaine Hopkins, was not greatly appreciated by most people. I however found it as quite a good movie. I will admit there are a few boring scenes, but overall it was entertaining. The main man for bringing people into the theaters was starring actor, Tupac Shakur, who was shot 4 years later.

For those who don’t know, on the streets of Harlem in the 90s, “juice” was a term that referred to power. Most of the time this power was ill received, for instance via a killing, or armed robberies. All people liked to think they had juice, but truthfully only a few of the hardcore gangsters really had it. Most of the people who had this “juice” were in very dangerous positions, because everybody else was also jockeying for this power.

Tupac, Omar, Khalil, and Jermaine played four young black men living in Harlem, who commonly got into trouble with a local Hispanic gang. One day, this group of friends decided to rob a convenience store at gun point. But “Q,” played by Omar Epps, had a deejaying competition on the day that they planned to rob the store. The rest of the friends planned to use this as an alibi. The group of friends decided that Bishop, played by Tupac Shakur, should hold the gun until the robbery. Before this the friends had only attempted petty crimes. With a botched robbery, and a dead convenience store owner, the friends started off towards the deejaying competition. A little ways through their walk Raheem, played by Khalil Kain, ended up going separate ways. Once back on the stage, “Q,” along with the other friends, was taken out of the building and to the police station. Somebody was going to receive a lot of “juice.”

The acting in this movie, although not extravagant, was not that bad either. Tupac Shakur did an amazing job at playing Bishop, the supposedly crazy thug, and Omar Epps did a great job at playing off of Tupac’s performance, making a great duo between the two.
I also rather liked the directing by Mr. Dickerson. He managed to pull off a great movie, using very important figures from the time and using a very edge-of-your-seat story line, where you never even know if someone is going to die. Some part of the movie were actually very saddening yet it was still a very good movie.

Brenner, Paul. "Juice (1992)." Juice. Rotten Tomatoes, 9 May 2008. Web. 01 Dec. 2012.
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