The Movie Juice Movie

“Yo, you got the juice now, man” is the last line in the famous movie “Juice”. Juice, released in 1992, is a classic African-American crime thriller directed by Ernest R. Dickerson. The film follows the life of four friends- aspiring DJ Quincy, belligerent Bishop, womanizer Raheem, and quirky Steel- in Harlem as they navigate through friendship, manhood, and power. Juice follows the day-to-day activities in the lives of the young men starting out as petty mischief, but growing more serious as time passes by. Fed up with what little respect the group receives, Bishop convinces his friends to rob the local convenience store to give them more “juice”. As one could imagine, things take a turn for the worst as the characters cross lines and

Presumably many misfortunes could have been avoided in the movie had Quincy, Raheem, and Steel not followed Bishop’s plan to rob the store or had one of them taken action after the incident. The crew’s conversation before robbing the store goes as follows “everybody got their gloves? Yeah, man. Ol' man Quiles is in there by himself. Let's do this.” Robbing the convenience store was a major turning point in the movie that caused a domino effect of events that could have been avoided. Had Quincy decided to stand by his commitment to the DJ contest and not succumb to peer pressure he would never have been in this situation in the first place. Had Raheem not agreed to Bishop’s order of getting the gun, then, theoretically the crime would have never happened. Had Steel spoken up when Raheem asked if he was sure he wanted to go through with the crime, like Quincy, his situation and the events that caused his death could have been avoided. Quincy’s possibility of ending up in jail and Raheem and Steel’s deaths all could have been avoided had they chose to be their own person as opposed to following the others. The tragedies that occur in Juice reiterate that it is important to be your own leader and making your own path because you never know where following someone else’s path may lead

All the boys were essentially trying to obtain “juice” in their own way; Quincy wanted to become a known DJ, Bishop wanted respect in the streets, and Steel wanted respect from his crew and from women. In another one of his monologues, Bishop exclaims that “All we do is run!...You gotta snatch some collars! You gotta make them know you're there to take them out anytime you feel like it! Otherwise, you ain't nothing.” Bishop is so concerned with his desire for power and being known in the streets that he’s blind to the possible consequences that could occur. Everyone’s quest for juice is cut short as they all inevitably die, except for Quincy who in the end gets the juice, but just not the kind that he desired. The movie brings to light the fact you could be careful of what you wish for, especially since getting what you want can cause you to lose what you