Hood 2 Hood is a five-hour recon mission into the worst ghettos in America, a bulletproof window into the poverty, violence, bravado, economics, and pride that define life there. It's a bit like COPS without the cops, or Menace II Society without the script or actors. Call it Lifestyles of the 'Hood Rich and Infamous.
Skinny teenagers pull up T-shirts to show off gunshot wounds, some with bullets still embedded. Crack and heroin users make buys on street corners, oblivious to the camera. Residents of high-rise East Coast projects tell of people being thrown off top floors. And thug after thug relates sad stories of missing parents, enemy gangs, crooked cops, prison bids, lost fortunes, shoot-outs, and RIP T-shirts.
The DVD's minimal narrative thread is provided by a road movie structure. At the start of each chapter, a computer-generated van drives across a map of the United States and stops at one of 27 different locales, including eleven on last year's list of the 25 most dangerous US cities. The ride starts in San Francisco and heads east through Oakland, Richmond, Vallejo, and Sacramento, before looping through the Midwest, north to New York City, south through New Orleans, and back out to Los Angeles. By the time the van returns to the Bay, the audience has witnessed at least a dozen garden-variety inner city felonies, often with the perpetrators' faces in full view.
By Darren Keast
EAST BAY EXPRESS
"Hood 2 Hood," provides viewers with "a journey into the crimiest hoods in America," according to its packaging. It purports to show gang activity in 27 cities across the nation, from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Sacramento.
Part of the marketing pitch is that the DVD features "the hoods" of Eminem, Jay Z, Nelly, Suge Knight and other rap stars.
Many of the reputed gang members in the DVD flash wads of cash and show off bullet wounds. One unidentified man in New Orleans displays an AK-47-style assault rifle and says, "This is my favorite toy."
The Las Vegas segment starts at an abandoned house with six men and a teen describing illegal activities such as dealing drugs or shooting rivals.
One, dressed in a black sweatshirt, fires a revolver twice in the house and says, "I'm only 17."
Another, in a white T-shirt and black skull cap, said he is so numb to street violence in Las Vegas that shootings and killings "doesn't even fascinate" him anymore.
The DVD is just one of a growing number of underground documentaries, such as "American Pimp" or "Gang Tapes," that show interviews with people allegedly involved in criminal activity.
Alex Alonso, owner of Streetgangs.com, a distribution house for "urban" DVDs, said "Hood 2 Hood" has been the most popular DVD for months.
" 'Hood 2 Hood' represents the realness," of street gangs, he said.
By David Kihara
Las Vegas Sun
