"I have seen the future of filmmaking," wrote Jamaa Fanaka in the Los Angeles Times, "and it is the Hughes brothers." Fanaka might have been indulging in a bit of hyperbole, but in fact Albert and Allen Hughes, fraternal twin brothers, took Hollywood by storm in the early 1990s. Within a decade they had produced four feature films--all of which they directed and two of which they also helped write--which have generated not only industry buzz, but also critical acclaim. Nineteen years of age when they sold their first screenplay, the Hughes brothers' debut feature, Menace II Society, was released when they were twenty. The brothers hit the ground running with a so-called black film that grossed almost $30 million at the box office and attracted viewers across the color line. The story of a young African-American man who struggles to escape the violence of the Watts projects, the...