Squeeze centers around the difficult and dangerous coming-of-age of three poor youths on the mean streets of Boston. African-American Tyson (Tyrone Burton) lives alone in his hospitalized mother's apartment and has dropped out of school. His two best friends are Hector (Eddie Cutanda), a Latino, and Bao (Phuong Duong), a Vietnamese boy. They pick up some spare change working at a gas station but get in trouble by beating up a gang member who shamed Tyrone. Looking for shelter, they join a youth center run by JJ (Geoffrey Rhue), a sensitive and street savvy black man.
However, more trouble comes when Hector convinces his friends to peddle drugs for a dealer who calls them "the PG-13 gang." After experiencing a severe beating and seeing several slayings, Tyrone is hospitalized in a state of shock similar to the kind experienced by Vietnam veterans. JJ is there at just the right moment to pull him through — a sort of modern-day catcher in the rye.
Writer and director Robert Patton-Spruill has made a gritty and engaging film that shows how the caring and compassionate presence of a mentor can make all the difference in the world to young urban males who are crossing over to adulthood in a life-threatening milieu of violence and drugs.