Set It Off

Set It Off is advertised as a thriller about four black women who rob banks. But it's a lot more than that. It creates a portrait of the lives of these women that's so observant and informed; it's like “Waiting to Exhale” with a strong jolt of reality. Read full review

Enough does work, and well, to make Set It Off a valuable model for a new kind of girl-pack story: one that’s not just for girls. Read full review

The intense heist sequences show a command of thriller dynamics that's right up there with the best of them, but director Gray is equally convincing on the character front, eliciting funny, grounded performances from the four women (Latifah notably refuses to caricature her lesbian role). Read full review

Influenced by "Thelma & Louise" and "Waiting to Exhale," F. Gary Gray's "Set It Off" is a well-crafted girls-n-the-hood actioner, with an acute social conscience and plenty of soul. A tale of female bonding and empowerment, this relevant film boasts a terrific cast, headed by Jada Pinkett and Queen Latifah in career-making performances. Read full review

What sets this movie apart from the innumerable other entries into the action/caper genre is its social perspective. Set It Off doesn't preach, but you'd have to be blind not to recognize that there's a message here about the kind of desperation that can result from the familiar cycle of poverty, sexism, and racism. Read full review

Although perhaps inescapably derivative, the film rides its cast's warm and vibrantly meshed energies - to say nothing of its gender novelty. It's filled with heart and muscle as the women tired of being scammed, slammed and rammed deposit the exploitation film in new realms of payback. [06 Nov 1996, p.D1]

The movie illuminates how the moral, economic, and spiritual concerns of its characters converge in situations that defy ethical platitudes. In less capable hands the brasher metaphors might have come across as trite, but director F. Gary Gray (Friday) generally manages to ensure that the line where technique meets meaning is marvelously blurred. Read full review

There is an interesting intelligence at work in Set It Off. This, a number of far-better-than-average performances, and a kind of unique naivete all combine to make a film that, like the robberies these women commit, might have gone terribly awry and didn't. [15 Nov 1996, p.L30]

The action sequences deliver, as do the performances. You want these characters to make it, and their destinies are compelling to behold. Read full review

The movie is, ultimately, a fascinating victim of its own ambitions. Read full review

Set It Off doesn't say anything especially original, but it says it loud and proud. [06 Nov 1996, p.1D]

You've seen Set It Off several times before featuring male characters: The proven popularity of boy-dominated 'hood movies has made this female variation possible. Just the fact that four worthy African American actresses get decent staring roles gives the story a purpose it wouldn't ordinarily have. Read full review

The actresses work hard to give spark to some of the predictable scenes and dialogue in the screenplay by Kate Lanier and Takashi Bufford. Their fine work eclipses the fact that the film gives us very little information about most of them. Read full review

Where "Boyz N the Hood" cut deep, to bone, this one stays glibly on the surface. It's slick and routinely entertaining, if never quite persuasive. [06 Nov 1996]

With a tighter script, Set It Off could have been a good film. Instead, it's just a mediocre one. [06 Nov 1996, p.49]

There is a sequence where his four felons parody a sitdown from The Godfather that is both inept and painfully out of place. But there's enough in Set It Off to set it apart and to argue that, when it comes to putting a new spin on the inner-city heist, you're better off with the ladies. [06 Nov 1996, p.E01]

Overlong, overdone and overwrought, the narratively challenged Set It Off gets off on exploitation shock and social-conscience schlock in equal measure. Yet it still manages to get it on entertainingly with a big assist from Latifah, blasting off the screen like human TNT, and Jada Pinkett (The Nutty Professor) in another firecracker performance. [06 Nov 1996]

Like the characters it presents, this film ends up with dreams it can’t deliver on, but just having the desire to do something different makes it a project worth paying attention to. Read full review

The characters are two-dimensional types -- the good girl, the tough lesbian, the saintly mother -- but the cast gives its all. Just try not to get too distracted by the echoes of other movies, like DEAD END BOYZ N THE HOOD. Read full review

The four actresses supply enough humor and heart to light any movie’s fuse, even this cliched retread of Thelma and Louise. Like the characters they play, the sisters deserve better. Read full review

Set It Off blends action and urban drama effectively, but at times isn't sure which foot to lead with. Read full review

The problem is that their heists are poorly executed, and most of the actresses (especially Queen Latifah) wildly overact. [08 Nov 1996, p.A]

If Set It Off had concentrated on easy thrills like that well-filmed drive-through-the-walls robbery climax, it might have qualified as pulpy entertainment. Instead, it's that deadliest of beasts: an exploitation movie with pretensions to social significance. [06 Nov 1996, p.1]

Stupid and exploitive, the movie is loaded with cartoonish gunplay, car chases and strange allusions to The Godfather. This is an offer you'll gladly refuse. [06 Nov 1996, p.5D]