One of several crossover filmmakers who made both hip-hop music videos and Hollywood feature films, F. Gary Gray began his directing career with videos for artists like Ice Cube and Cypress Hill before helming his feature debut at the tender age of 26, the buddy comedy Friday. Set It Off is an altogether different film, a female-driven, nail-biting heist movie boasting the all-star cast of Jada Pinkett Smith, Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox, and Kimberly Elise, who star as four close friends working the night shift together at a janitorial services company in LA. As various tragedies befall the women, a desperate need for money drives them to the much more lucrative career of armed bank robbery. “I ain’t thinking about 5 years from now, I’m just trying to get through the day.” It’s operatic in its tragedy, and much like Michael Mann’s Heat (released the year before), Set It Off is the rare crime film that manages to both gleefully deliver elaborate and violent action sequences without sacrificing any empathy for its characters. It’s hard to stand out in a cast this stacked, but Queen Latifah’s butch, lowrider-driving, lapdance-getting Cleo is one for the ages.

Co-presented by Chicago Reader x the Art Idiot

The Chicago Reader has been a fearless, innovative, and nationally respected alternative news source and cultural guide for more than 50 years. Published monthly in print and updated daily online, the Reader delivers in-depth reporting on local politics, arts, culture, and investigative journalism. The Reader film and media coverage highlights local, independent, and emerging voices through work spanning criticism-driven reviews, essays, and think pieces, as well as stories covering the ideas, craft, and context shaping filmmakers working in and around the city.

 

The Art Idiot is a Chicago-based experimental criticism courier focused on the cinematic arts and expanding what is considered art and culture. Created by the writer and film critic Cortlyn Kelly in 2021, The Art Idiot aims to keep curiosity alive through newsletters, print media, programming, and more. Above all, The Art Idiot looks for love in all places and platforms it for the rest of the world to see.