“Girl’s Trip” was all kinds of incredible, hilarious, tear-jerking amazingness but what put the icing on the cake was the movie’s nod to a 1996 classic — “Set It Off.”
You see, “Girl’s Trip isn’t the first time Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett Smith shared the big screen. Over 20 years ago, the two starred in the iconic action movie “Set It Off,” that followed four best friends (ha, the irony) who decided on an elaborate plan to commit bank robberies for the betterment of themselves and their families.
Now Malcolm D. Lee’s 2017 “Girl’s Trip” had nothing to do with bank robberies, or crime, or anyone getting shot at (attacked with a broken wine bottle, maybe — but no shootings), but the film definitely didn’t ignore the fact that this was the first time Latifah and Pinkett Smith co-starred in a movie together since their last crime spree.
During the movie, Ryan (Regina Hall), Sasha (Latifah), Lisa (Pinkett Smith) and Dina (Tiffany Haddish) decide to go to a local New Orleans nightclub and when they first enter, Dina tells her girlfriends to come on and “let’s set it off.” At this point, Pinkett Smith and Latifah’s characters look at each other, nod and walk off onto the dance floor side by side.
The exchange between the two was unspoken but still understood by everyone — or at least those who knew of the two actors’ role in “Set It Off.”