SOURCE: Harrison, Eric. “Baby Boy is Passionate and Disturbing.” Houston Chronicle (27 June 2001): F5.

In the following review, Harrison offers a positive assessment of Baby Boy.

A decade after Boyz N the Hood, it's easy to forget how impressive an achievement that movie was, especially considering that its writer and director was only 23. Drawing on the circumstances of his own life, John Singleton created a new kind of movie, one that spoke directly to disaffected youths while at the same time offering mainstream America a stirring glimpse into a world rarely shown on film.

It was hardly Singleton's fault that a flood of gang-related, hip-hop-influenced movies followed. Few of them built on Singleton's work; most merely exploited the audience he discovered. Within a few years of its release it seemed Boyz had given birth to a creatively stunted genre, but one that somehow kept luring ticket buyers even when...