one of my absolute favorites!

disgusting, overrated, pointless

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

This movie is amazing. One of the best I've ever watched! Jada! Queen! Vivica! Kimberly! They are bad-ass women. Without them, this movie wouldn't have been as great. I wonder why this movie isn't placed up there as one of the greats? Actually, I know why but I'm not going to talk about that. Otherwise, F Gary Gray did a magnificent job in telling this story. I was moved by the characters' motivations and results of their actions. I enjoyed watching the sisterhood between these girls and how they so cared about each other. They had a real hard or die quality to them. Movies in this genre that are as intense, in terms of the thrill, usually feature men, exclusively. So, this was a pleasant surprise because it featured not only women but African American women. 10/10

Very touching and exciting movie! You really get to feel for the characters and the image of movie sticks with you for a while. There is a combination of strong, emancipated but hopeless women, drama, tension, romance and Queen Latifah as a lesbian ;) You follow the life of four women who have financial problems, most of them due to injustice caused by police and government. They also have lost or are bout to lose their loved ones. This pushes them over the edge and they decide to rob a bank. When watching the movie you really feel their inner struggle and how they feel they have no other choice. I loved every part of it. Definitely worth watching.

I remember that i saw this movie when it launched in 1996. The appealing performance of the characters introduced a new area for action drama. The performance of the women Is marvelous and the story line Is breath taking.I watched this movie again yesterday and the story never gets doll. It's safe to say that this Is one of the greatest action 'movies out there.I'm looking forward seeing more of these dramatic action movies, since they portrait a more realistic image and get you to empathizes with the characters - even when there villains!Many compliments to the directors and total cast of this movie production.

I've never lived in the projects. I have in no way experienced the plight of the marginalized. I've never known what it's like to be kept below the line that divides those who should be educated and those who should be left in the dark. For that reason I, by no means, have any right to speak for those people. But after watching the 1996 movie "Set it Off," I can't understand why no one seemed to get offended at its ignorance about, and exploitation of, the lower class- in particular the struggling black communities of urban areas."Set it Off" is about four close-knit women who have all had tough breaks in life. They made the best out of growing up in the projects and became, for the most part, honest, hard-working and self-respecting young women. The story starts off with Francesca, a bank clerk, getting held up and witnessing a violent shoot out that her fear crippled her from possibly preventing. A by the numbers detective named Strode blames her for it, causing her to get fired. The story shifts to its main character Lida, Francesca's friend who is a janitor in an upper-class apartment building, soon learning she has to compromise all of her good traits just to break even in life. To help her little brother get some money for college, she gives in to her shady employer's sexual demands. When her brother is coincidentally mistaken for the bank robber by Strode, he is shot and killed with no apologies.The movie was off to a good start, but I quickly started noticing that its scenes were getting progressively dumber. First off all, Strode seems to be on every case that the L.A.P.D. has to offer. Being that I have heard much praise for this film, I was surprised when more and more coincidences started trying my patience. The movie started feeling like a predictable crowd-pleaser, although it was supposed to be a hard-hitting protest about why the lower class seems to have abandoned.Any high school or college writing class teaches that to evaluate something is to see how closely or effectively it comes to its intended mark. My problem with "Set it Off" is that it is unclear as to what its mark really is. It shakily walks the line between action movie and socially-conscious drama so much that I started to question how dumb does the screenwriter thought his audience was. Since there is an objective made early on in the script, that there must be a reckoning for the unfair treatment of these women (and the lower-class community at large), it is questionable when it starts to stray.In his three and a half star (out of four) review of the film, Roger Ebert calls it "observant and well-informed." Sure the film had some very relatable characters and situations, but the screenplay is far from "Observant and well-informed." If anything, the writing is histrionic. A realistic screenplay would have characters who were less heroic and aware of their exploitation. Sure Queen Latifah is fabulous as a gun-toting lesbian, but does such a character really represent underprivileged women? A competent screenplay also wouldn't rely on coincidences and action sequences to make its point.(1 and 1/2 out of 4)