Set It Off (1996) on Netflix
Fired from her bank job after a robbery, Frankie Sutton takes a janitorial job with her three friends in Los Angeles. Short of money, the four women plan to rob a bank.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb6.9/1020,754 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes70%
Trailer
Plot summary
Francesca Sutton, Lida Newsom, Cleopatra Sims and Tisean Williams are close friends in Los Angeles. Frankie loses her job as a bank teller after a robbery at her branch leaves four people dead and she recognizes one of the robbers from her neighborhood. Detective Strode falsely accuses her of being an inside accomplice. She and her friends take work at Luther's Janitorial Services, where the owner disrespects them and pays paltry wages. Stony needs money for her brother Stevie's college tuition and accepts an advance from her boss Nate, a used car salesman. Tisean loses custody of her son to Child Protective Services after the boy is accidentally poisoned at the workplace where she had brought him. Frankie proposes robbing a bank; Cleo agrees, and Stony and Tisean join her.
Cast
- Vincent Baumas Jajuan
- Van Baumas Jajuan
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Set It Off (1996)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Takashi Bufford wrote the script with Pinkett Smith and Queen Latifah in mind even though he had not yet met them, and the script was offered to New Line three times before finally being accepted.
- Decades on, the climactic song "Up Against the Wind" sung by Lori Perry became a popular viral meme sound bite used in many TikTok and Instagram videos, and it has been sampled by rappers including The Game, Lil Baby and Big Sean.
- Pinkett Smith has refused a sequel for years: "there's no way I can do Set if Off without Vivica, Queen and Kimberly... Sometimes you gotta let a classic be a classic and just don't touch it." Asked about an Issa Rae version, Fox replied, "It's a classic, leave it alone."
- There were reports of violence in some theaters showing the film, including a shooting in Lakewood, California, which left three people injured.
- Humanities academic Kara Keeling asserted the film's significance to queer film studies, establishing the significance of Cleo and Ursula's relationship to butch/femme representation and using concepts of blaxploitation and ghettocentrism.
