I thought that this movie was really good. It showed how every person has different personal struggles. Trey wanted to be a better person after his father guided him. Ricky wanted to raise him family and was struggling. Trey and Ricky seem to be the "good" kids who are trying to be better than the rest. Trey has a stable job at the mall and Ricky is looking to go to college. The others won't amount to anything, they just live the typical life for them. Doughboy is smart but he doesn't try to be intelligent, he just wants to be nothing. In many scenes he's looking for a fight, and most of his day is spent drinking beer.
Trey wants to go to college with Brandi.

Ricky wants to support his kid and
Furious wants to be successful.
All of this is foreshadowed in the beginning,
doughboy and chris both get shoved into the police car when they steal. Trey decides to not go with him and isn't worried about trouble. You can still tell Doughboy has good character in the movie. In the beginning he tries to fight the older boys to get the ball back for his brother. Later in the movie he is happy to see his friends. He takes some education seriously, he learned to read even though he wasn't around school often. Chris is later seen in the movie in a wheel chair, which showed he was shot or in some kind of incident. Doughboy is killed at the end of the movie which is a result of his violent tendencies.