Basketball Diaries
1995
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Lorraine Bracco, Mark Whalberg, Bruno Kirby, Michael Imperioli, Ernie Hudson.
Director: Scott Kalvert.
Plot: This is the story of a boy who went from basketball superstar to full blown junkie. Based on Jim Carroll's autobiographical book by the same title, it tell's about his life growing up and attending a Catholic and being one of the best players on the school's basketball team. Jim(Leonardo DiCaprio), is the star of the movie who has a gang a friend he's always hanging out with. His best friend is Mickey(Mark Whalberg), who's also on the basketball team. Jim's going throw a tough time in his life, he's living with his mother(Lorraine Bracco) in a small apartment, he hates his school which is why he does bad in it, and one of his other best friend's, Bobby(Michael Imperioli) is dying of leukemia. This all leads to his addiction to all types of drugs ranging from heroin to uppers to sniffing glue. One day, before a basketball game, his coach Swifty(Bruno Kirby) finds some drugs on Jim and threatens to kick him off the team. He continues to do poorly in school and on the team and gets kicked out of both. He decides to move out of his house and spend his life doing drugs. Him and his buddy's get heavily involved in the drugs which leads to robbery, fights, and eventually death. Before Jim OD's, Reggis(Ernie Hudson), a friend who used to play basketball with him, takes him into his house and starts a painful rehabilitation. Jim escapes and continues his drug run but luckily we know he cleans up because he was able to write a book about his life.
My Thoughts: I remember seeing this and thinking that this is very disturbing. The drug use is very graphic from showing people shooting up to showing them doing lines. The whole movie is very grim which was made that way to show how a junkie's life was like. The movie shows us Jim's slow descent into hell as a junkie. First, he's just smoking marijuana and cigarettes, then some pills, then as time goes by, he's using all those plus heroin and cocaine constantly. It also shows what a user will do to get the drugs. In one scene we see him and his friends breaking into a cafe and stealing the money just to use it towards drugs. Also, in one highly disturbing scene, we see Jim go into a bathroom in the subway with a old man. Then it shows the man giving Jim oral sex in one of the stalls. When he's done, we see him paying Jim and then Jim goes off and buys some drugs. As I said, there are many graphic scenes of drug use which are used strictly to show us the dangers of drugs. I happen to like the movie Trainspotting more than this because that also goes indepth into the results of drug use but there are comecial moments, while this one seems like a total downer.
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