Set It Off

Four women living in a poor Los Angeles neighbourhood have grown up together and share a long friendship. Each faces a personal loss or reversal: one is fired from her job at a bank, one loses her brother, one loses her child, and one has given up on her own future. Deciding that they have nothing left to lose, Stony, Cleo, Frankie and Tisean begin robbing banks, aiming to take enough money to leave their old lives behind and start over abroad. The robberies go well at first, but as the money accumulates their individual goals begin to pull them apart, and a final job becomes necessary even as the police close in.

F. Gary Gray directed the film, his second feature after Friday (1995), from a screenplay by Takashi Bufford and Kate Lanier. Jada Pinkett Smith plays Stony, Queen Latifah plays Cleo, Vivica A. Fox plays Frankie and Kimberly Elise plays Tisean, with Blair Underwood as Keith and John C. McGinley as Detective Strode. Produced by New Line Cinema and Peak Productions on a budget of nine million dollars, it took around forty-two million dollars worldwide, a strong return. It holds a rating of 6.9 on IMDb from roughly twenty thousand votes and 7.2 on TMDB from about four hundred, while critics gave it 6.5 from thirty-eight reviews.