He has a out-of-wedlock son with his girlfriend Shanice (Alysia Rogers) and is being recruited by the University of Southern California, but needs to earn a minimum SAT score of 700 to receive an athletic scholarship.
Ricky is a star running back at Crenshaw High School. Doughboy has just been released from prison and spends most of the time hanging out with friends Chris (now confined to a wheelchair), Monster and Dookie. The film offers a keen insight on racial inequality, drugs, sex, and gang violence.
Tre (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) is a high school senior aspiring to become a college man, Ricky (Morris Chestnut) an All-American football player at the same school, and Doughboy (Ice Cube) a crack dealing gangster and high school dropout. The three boys lead very different lives. The film skips forward to seven years later in 1991 at a backyard picnic party.
and reunites with old friends Doughboy, Ricky, and Little Chris though shortly after being reunited, Doughboy and Chris are arrested for shoplifting from a local convenience store. Tre begins his new life in South Central L.A.
Furious is a no-nonsense disciplinarian who teaches his son how to be a man. His mother Reva Devereaux (Angela Bassett), decides it would be best for her son if Tre were to live with his father, Furious Styles (Laurence Fishburne). One of his fellow students antagonizes him and he fights with the boy, earning an ejection for the day. Tre Styles is an intelligent young student of about age 10, but encounters disciplinary problems at his young age - he mouths off to his teacher, who gives him the opportunity to lecture on a topic of his choosing.
Between these two is their friend Tre Styles (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), who is lucky to have a father, Furious Styles (Laurence Fishburne), to teach him to have the strength of character to do what is right and to always take responsibility for his actions.
Ricky is the "All-American" athlete, looking to win a football scholarship to USC and seeks salvation through sports, while Doughboy succumbs to the violence, alcohol, and crime surrounding him in his environment, but maintains a strong sense of pride and code of honor.
Half-brothers Doughboy (Ice Cube) and Ricky Baker (Morris Chestnut) are foils for each other's personality, presenting very different approaches to the tough lives they face. Writer and Director John Singleton's portrayal of social problems in inner-city Los Angeles, California takes the form of a tale of three friends growing up together in the "hood". Follows the lives of three young males living in the Crenshaw ghetto of Los Angeles, dissecting questions of race, relationships, violence, and future prospects.