Title: Friday (1995)
Directed by: F. Gary Gray
Duration: 1h 37m
Cast: Ice Cube, Chris Tucker, Reese Witherspoon, Bernie Mac, Nia Long, Tom Lister Jr.
As far as comedies go, Ice Cube’s Friday will forever be a classic African-American comedy. It just doesn’t get a lot better than two buddies, two jobless young black men who stay at home on a Friday, smoke weed, and experience various encounter, most of them laughable but a few of them life-changing.
The two main characters, played to perfection by Ice Cube and Chris Tucker blended perfectly as Ice Cube’s dry tough guy demeanor is constantly in checkmate by Chris Tucker’s idiotic hilarity. In Friday, they make a perfect duo. They could even have gone on to join the police force and fight crimes together and it would just be your quintessential buddy cop comedy.
Of course, the chances of either of them becoming law enforcement were as slim as it could get; Craig was just recently caught on tape at his job stealing boxes resulting in his being sacked on his day off, while Smokey, well he’s just a chronic weed smoker but he happens to be a dealer, howbeit a very unprincipled one. Their “lifestyle” caught up with them on this Friday when Smokey decided since Craig’s got no job then they should get high. On products he was supposed to be selling, by the way. Obviously, things could only go downhill from there, and boy, did they!
Directed by F. Gary Gray, Friday has two sequels, both of which starred Ice Cube alongside Mike Epps (in place of Chris Tucker), and the film is generally considered the best from the Franchise. It’s not hard to see why too. Everything from the story to the cinematography and the ensemble cast lineup that includes the ever-hilarious Reese Witherspoon, the beautiful and young Nia Long, and Bernie Mac, all alongside Ice Cube, who at this time had already made a name for himself as an NWA rap act and was well on his way to become a hip-hop legend. Not to forget Chris Tucker who was already budding on the comedy scene. Friday shot their respective careers to levels they could only have dreamt of before then with the movie doing 27 million USD over a 3 million budget, a decent success according to industry standards.
Coming in at 1h 37m, it’s got not only the perfect length for a good time (especially for stoners) but also for some twenty-eight-odd years, Friday has been the quintessential stoner movie. And not to talk about all the memorable moments, from the rhyming “damn” to the “I got mind control over Deebo” moment which Lil Wayne used as a line on a song with Drake in 2015.
Friday is one of those ‘a lot can happen in one-day’ classics and a lot did happen leading up to a satisfying climax that makes the whole thing worth it. Comedy at its finest but it’s more than just a comedy. It’s reality. Black creative excellence. Of the few things I know for sure, one of them is: that you don’t get up from Friday feeling like you’ve just wasted two hours of your life.
Rotten Tomatoes: 76%
IMDb Rating: 7.2/10
Letterboxd: 3.5/5
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