For the
sake of not having to write the same intro a million
different ways throughout the rest of time, just know that
this column avoids the overly long and sometimes dull
process of full film reviews and instead opts to break
things down based on what I thought going in, what happened
while I was there and what I learned at the end of it all.
Thanks for reading!
The
Breakdown - The Interrupters
The Impression:
Steve James is a sort of American documentary god with
Hoop Dreams in his discography. And though I will
ashamedly admit that I’ve never seen anything he’s done, his
film about urban crime in Chicago and a group of ex-gang
members who thrust themselves in to danger to try to put an
end to it, sounds very, very interesting.
The Reality:
The Interrupters is a great subject portrayed in a
very rough-shod, furry sort of way. Steve James focuses his
camera on a select group of Cease Fire Interrupters,
hardened ex-cons who’ve turned their lives around and now
seek to put themselves in the middle of violent situations
in an attempt to defuse them and save lives. There is so
much to be said about the subject of urban crime and why it
occurs and though James touches on the pain and familial
lack that sits at the center of it all, he spends much of
the film in a sort of episodic reality-television lens where
The Interrupters are called to save the day. It makes the
film feel like an extremely long episode of some new urban
cop show and drains a lot of the impact from the more
emotional moments. Not to say the film doesn’t hit and hit
hard. All James needs to do is aim the camera anywhere in
the Englewood neighborhood in which The Interrupters work
and there’s some wild evidence of the brutal lives lived in
projects across the country. In truth I would’ve been
happiest if the film had spent all of its time with the
hard-as-nails-smart-as-a-whip Interrupter Ameena Matthews, a
former gang lieutenant turned towards good who jumps between
looming mother hen and bad-ass enforcer at the drop of a
hat. She’s a pleasure to watch and to learn more and more
about and though she fills most of the film I could only
hope for her to fill every frame.
The Lesson:
Tighten it up Steve.
- Noah Sanders
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