“Set it off” (1996) is a movie about 4 friends, Cleo, Frankie, T.T, and Stoney, and the events that lead to them committing bank robberies. The movie takes place in downtown Los Angeles, California, in a Lower income area referred to as Acorn Projects. The movie begins with a scene of one of the 4 main females, Frankie, working at her job as a bank teller. Frankie notices someone who walks in and tries to begin a conversation with them, but before that conversation can come to fruition a gun is pulled out in front of her. The man tells Frankie to empty the drawer and Frankie pleads with him to just walk away before he’s caught. The man doesn’t listen and proceeds to shoot a coworker next to Frankie as two more men reveal themselves and assist with the heist. The Robbery becomes a shootout with two of the robbers and a worker being shot, only one robber escapes, Lorenz. After the crime scene settles down the police question Frankie and ask why she didn’t follow the correct protocol during the robbery. Frankie revealed to the officers and bank manager that she knew one of the men who robbed the bank and while she tries to explain there was no personal connection between them the bank fires her. Someone else’s actions can be controlled, and it’s reasonable to forget protocols when a gun is pointed at you, Frankie’s firing was unfair and she knows it. Her being fired is one of the first reasons she starts to distrust and rebel against the system and plan a heist.
The scene follows with the introduction to the rest of the main female cast, Cleo, T.T, and Stoney; we are also introduced to Stoney’s little brother Steveie in this scene. The scene is set in a party to celebrate Stevie going to college, it’s a happy event with people drinking and dancing, and congratulating Stevie on getting accepted to college and leaving Acorn projects. Everytime college is brought up Stevie has a bittersweet look on his face and eventually he and stoney go off to have a conversation in private. Stevie tells his sister that he had lied about getting a scholarship and that he’s giving up on college because they don’t have the money, Stoney shuts down this idea and tells him she’ll get the money no matter what. Stoney is desperate for money and turns to a car salesman she knows for a job, he agrees to hire her but after Stoney said she would need an advance on her first check his tone shifts quickly. The only way for her to get the advance is to sleep with him, and after some thought she agrees. Stoney is relieved that she has the money for her brother and when she gets home to tell him, Steve drops a bombshell, he never got accepted into college. Outraged Stoney blows up on him and he leaves because he felt she wasn’t being reasonable. Stevie goes to his friend, Lorenez’s house where he’s gifted a bottle of champagne and receives a haircut from a girl there. Outside the police are preparing for a raid of Lorenez’s house, for the suspicion of committing a bank robbery. When Stevie leaves he’s mistaken for Lorenez and swarmed by the raid, and after a champagne bottle was mistaken for a gun he was killed by the police. This catastrophe becomes stoney’s main motivation for committing the robbery, she is devastated by her brothers death and outraged by the circumstances surrounding it, this leads her to agree to committing the bank robberies.
The scene following the steve’s party focuses on T.T, Cleo, and Stoney at there janitorial job, working under a deceitful man named Luther. Luther enters the scene complaining about the 3 friends not doing their job properly and asks them who was in charge of room 104. T.T comes forward telling Luther it was her and he decides to start texting her paychecks as punishment. T.T is distraught by this news because she was promised to be paid under the table, and with tax cuts she wouldn’t be able to afford her son’s babysitter. Luther is indifferent about her problems and simply tells her to find another job if she doesn’t like the way he does business. Later in the movie, T.T is forced to bring her son to work because she can no longer afford a babysitter. Her son accidentally gets into some chemicals and is sent to urgent care, this ends up leading to T.T’s turning point in the movie. CPS is made aware of the situation and explains
to T.T that unless she can show proof she can financially afford to provide for her son they’d be forced to take him away from her. Up until this point T.T has been against the bank robberies, even after her paychecks get taxed she held firm in her ideals. But with the very real threat of losing her child she had no choice to join the heist. While she does have a distrust for the system like the other woman, her motivations are primarily to protect her family, just wanting the money so she can keep her boy.
Cleo, the fourth member of the group, is motivated to help her friends and for financial freedom. Cleo is a black lesbain in the 90’s and while the movie merely glosses over this fact it’s safe to assume she has faced criticism and adversities due to her sexuality. She is the first of the group to agree with Frankies plan to rob the bank and shown to be the most reckless and quickest to action in the group. Cleo already had a distrust for the system and a drive to gain financial freedom, no matter the cost, sense the start of the movie. Cleo is financially motivated because she wants to live a lavish lifestyle with her girlfriend, she’s shown buying new things for her car and is the most on board with doing more heists as the movie progresses.
After the movie finishes fleshing out each of the characters motives for committing the heist, the four girls begin planning and committing the robbery, there are 3 heists in total. The girls run into multiple road bumps in their first attempt. They lack resources and experience. They needed guns, a getaway car, and a plan; Frankie used her experience at the bank to warn her friends about the silent alarms and how the bank tellers would activate it and cleo secured guns and a getaway car. After that further discussion the only thing left to do was rob the bank. Besides T.T getting cold feet before the heist, everything went smoothly and they made a clean escape with the money. The group dynamics slowly intensify after each heist, the first infight is between Frankie and T.T. Frankie doesn’t want to give T.T any money from the heist because she walked out on them but this is quickly and peacefully resolved by stoney. The group is also concerned about Cleos reckless spending, worried that people might become suspicious about where her newfound wealth came from. Unbeknownst to the 4 girls, police were already suspicious of the group after reviewing the bank’s recording and recognizing them from Steveie death.
The second heist raised the tension in the group, the steaks, and rewards compared to the first. This heist highlighted each of the characters personalities, starting with Cleo and Stoney’s infighting. When discussing the second heist, stoney disputes the idea only to be treated with a gun by cleo, stoney smacks cleo in response raising tensions between them and the group as a whole. The second heist doesn’t go as smoothly as the first. They have a more organized and throughout plan, and each person has a more defined roll to play during the heist and commits to the roll well. The group enters with disguises and the heist begins, Cleo and Frankie threaten and silence the hostages while the other two work on getting the money out of the safe. Things quickly turn south however when a worker activates a silent alarm, Frankie understands they are low on time and they quickly expedite their actions. They are pursued by police in their getaway car but they manage to evade them. This heist had the group face the fear of a worst case scenario for the first time, barely making it out before the police arrived and being chased by police made them more aware of the risks they were facing with each robbery and made the group more careful and calculated. After this they choose to hide their money and slowly use it to avoid suspicion.
Before the third heist begins Stoney starts to date a bank teller at a federal bank the girls are planning on robbing. This is supposed to be their last heist, with insider information from Stoney’s date and their experience from the last two bank robberies it was a surefire heist that was bound to succeed. They enter the bank with their disguises and as they are getting the crowd under control a bank teller uses the silent alarm without them noticing. Soon the police arrive and without enough time to make a clean escape it
becomes a shootout. T.T gets shot and dies shortly after. Soon after Cleo dies after ramming her car into the police and getting shot open exiting the vehicle. Frankie is killed last, after trying to escape the situation she turns a gun on the same detective that interrogated her at her job and is shot shortly after confronting him. Stoney is the only one to survive out of the group, after witnessing some of her friends’ final moments, she flees the country and is seen at the end of the movie making contact with the bank teller she dated.
Ultimately the character’s environment held part of many of the tragedies the cast faced. For Frankie, being a part of Acorn projects caused her to have relations with people who robbed her bank at the start of the movie and gave her boss a reason to fire her. As for Stoney, living in the projects allowed her brother to interact and befriend a criminal which directly correlates with his death. The unjust system highlighted throughout the movie also correlates with their motives, Frankie is fired unfairly due to assumptions, and Stevie is shot by police officers that failed to question or identify a suspect.