High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell
((HBO, Tues, Aug. 8, 10:30 p.m.))
A roomful of crack addicts puff on their home-devised "pipes" (nothing more than a tube stuck into a plastic soda bottle); the camera singles out three individuals and follows their fortunes over an 18-months span.
Brenda clings to her addiction: "I love it more than anything; I hate it worse than anything." Pregnant by her sometime boyfriend Boo Boo, she wavers between abortion and motherhood, walks the streets nightly, terrified of the boredom concomitant on going straight.
Boo Boo supports his habit through theft. "I know every shopping mall in Massachusetts," he boasts. Dickie out on bail for an impressive list of charges , relives on videotape the one moment of glory in his life, knocking out Sugar Ray Leonard at a local boxing meet.
Nothing is resolved; instead, the very flatness of the producers' style with reporter De Leo's offscreen questioning providing a gentle prod, matches the hopelessness of the lives depicted. No system is indiccted; the city rots, and so do the three sorry individuals whom the documakers have chosen to follow; they're aware that better ways of life exist but are resigned to never entering them.
Brenda and her baby disappear; Boo Boo, who has learned that he is HIV-positive, makes only a half-hearted effort to find them. Dickie spends one last happy night with his crack bottle before starting his jail term. A final heartbreaking shot, of rusting ruins of Lowell's once prosperous textile mills sinking into the onrushing, polluted Merrimack River, sums it up tellingly.
Camera/sound, De Leo, Alpert; editors, John Custodio, Alpert, De Leo; music, the Beautiful. 60 MIN.
Variety is striving to present the most thorough review database. To report inaccuracies in review credits, please click here. We do not currently list below-the-line credits, although we hope to include them in the future. Please note we may not respond to every suggestion. Your assistance is appreciated.
