Synopsis

On the eve of his wedding, Mike Tarver struggles to keep his nervous friend Roland from backing out. As the men search for Roland, Mike looks back on their youth in Inglewood, California, recalling the friendship, rivalries, first romances, and growing pains that shaped their lives. The memories ultimately force the friends to confront how adulthood has changed them.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film was shot almost entirely on location in Inglewood, California, over a seven-week production period. Several locations were places writer Rick Famuyiwa knew from his childhood, including Double A Mart and La Tijera Elementary School.

• The story originated with Famuyiwa and his USC cinema professor Todd Boyd. Famuyiwa also worked full-time at the Beverly Hills branch of Niketown while writing the screenplay.

• Production designer Roger Fortune had to distinguish three periods: the characters' junior-high years in the mid-1980s, their high-school years in the late 1980s, and the present-day wedding storyline.

• The film's opening Steadicam shot reportedly took nearly an entire day to complete.

• The reported production budget was $6 million. The film earned approximately $25 million in domestic theaters and was released on home video in January 2000.

• An anecdote from Famuyiwa's USC visit recounts that Paramount executives suggested adding a butt-pinch for a joke near the ending. Famuyiwa rejected the idea, and the scene was never filmed.

• Several details in the 1986 flashback are anachronistic, including the use of Too Short's "Freaky Tales," which was released in 1987, and later-era convenience-store branding.