Hangin' with the Homeboys: Joseph Vasquez

Joseph Vasquez's Hangin' with the Homeboys is a small miracle of a film that combines the immediacy and introspection of John Cassavetes with the energy of the then burgeoning inner-city independent scene in American cinema. The film follows four friends on a Friday's night out on the town destined for doom and disaffection. By the end of the night their sojourn onto the mean streets of NYC will see their friendships tested and ultimately destroyed. Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of Hangin' with the Homeboys is Vasquez's ability to make all four friends feel like people instead of characters; each one of them has clearly defined hopes, dreams, hang-ups, fears, and hatreds. There's Tom, an aspiring actor with a dead-end job as a telemarketer who allows himself to be taken advantage of for money by his unemployed friends, Willie, a jobless urchin who shields himself from his own shortcomings with empty Black Power slogans and accusations of racism, Fernando (aka Vinny), a fast-talking, mooching Lothario with a severe racial inferiority complex, and Johnny, an idealistic yet hopelessly naive grocery store clerk who can never seem to work up the nerve to pursue what he wants, be it enrollment in college, friendship, or women. This isn't a film where the characters are driven by the writer from set-piece to set-piece in an attempt to keep the story moving along. This is a film that moves along organically without seeming tedious or contrived.

8/10