A comedy that centers on the lives of those in South Central Los Angeles, or even Compton, "Friday" was exceptionally new for when it was released, and saw characters that were funny and yet respectfully deep. Co-written by rapper and star of the film, Ice Cube, the film follows the lives of two grown men living at home, in the same neighborhood, and dealing with lives filled with strife, violence, and fly honies. Four years earlier Cube co-starred in the massively popular and dramatic film "Boyz N' the Hood", which took a look at the serious implications of living life as black men in a lower class neighborhood and surviving everyday events. "Friday" takes cues from that film, showing the characters as real as they come. His father is a dogcatcher who has a habit of going off on rants, his mother is a supportive but strict woman, his sister's weave keeps falling out, and his best friend is a lazy, pot smoking social reject who steals and deals drugs for an upper level dealer. Though laced with moments of obvious comedic intent such as Bernie Mac as a lascivious man who beds a married woman and then runs from her dwarf husband, and the neighborhood drug addict always asking to borrow actual devices from people's houses, everything feels so real. There is an actual message in the film, which is that gun violence doesn't make you a man, a real issue people found in Ice Cube's music and N.W.A.'s. Ice Cube is the main character, as Craig, but he simply plays the straight man to Chris Tucker as a pot head who is constantly lying to cover his own ass and making himself seem more important than he really is. Other great performances come from the incomparable John Witherspoon and Anna Maria Horsford as Craig's parents, Nia Long as the love interest, and a slew of character actors including Faizon Love, Tiny Lister, and Regina King. Funny for many reasons, Friday makes ill of its characters, but it's obvious that there is true love in the portrayals.