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The Basketball Diaries [Region 2] | ![The Basketball Diaries [Region 2]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51DWMAFBMFL._SL500_.jpg)
| Director: Scott Kalvert
Actors: Leonardo DiCaprio, Lorraine Bracco, Marilyn Sokol, James Madio, Patrick McGaw
Category: DVD
This item is no longer available
Rating:  119 reviews
Format: Anamorphic, Full Screen, NTSC
Languages: French (Unknown), English (Unknown), French (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 2
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Running Time: 102 Minutes
ASIN: B00004VYGA
Theatrical Release Date: April 21, 1995
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
The pre-Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Jim Carroll, the poet and musician who spent much of his adolescence addicted to heroin and shooting hoops with fellow Catholic high school kids. As a biography, the film doesn't amount to more than the sum of its gritty scenes of smack use, violence, perversions (poor Bruno Kirby plays a lecherous coach who comes on to young Jim), and the usual scream-and-puke dramas that go along with a cold-turkey session. Director Scott Kalvert doesn't seem to realize that most people don't know who Carroll is and therefore can't possibly understand why they should care about his gutterball youth. DiCaprio, having nowhere to go with his performance but maintain Carroll's tailspin, is boring and redundant. Some kind of allusion to the literary and rock & roll life that follows the mess we're watching might have been helpful. --Tom Keogh
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 119
 Basketball Diaries February 1, 2010
K. L. Dorsey (MD USA)
Good movie. Gave it to my grandson for Christmas and he loves it. Would buy it again.
 These are people who died, died January 11, 2010
Bradley F. Smith (Miami Beach, FL)
The final scene gives a brief glimpse of why we should care about this rather routine drug addiction film-noir, when we see Jim Carroll giving a reading of his writings. However, that comes 90 minutes too late to save what should have been an interesting biopic. The loss is now more poignant, given Carrol's recent death at age 60. Songs from Carroll's four rock albums dot the soundtrack, and the script is based on the book Carroll wrote at age 17 depicting his grim youth as a Catholic school drug addict in NYC. If only watchers were advised of these accomplishments at the film's beginnings, and then given a tour backward in time, the movie would have benefited. As it is, it's a lot of puking and screaming and fighting and writhing as the characters search for dope and/or go through withdrawal.
 This 'bomb' didn't explode December 10, 2009
Peter A. Gemmer (Space Center, FL)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This just can't be me alone! I could not finish this disjointed, boring, bad acting mistake called a movie. I like Leo, but bought it for Mark Walberg. I either didn't recognized him or he didn't make the first half of this waste of film and my time. Skip this one. Watch Leo in "Titanic" or "Blood Diamonds" or Mark in "Shooter" or "Planet of the Apes". These in my humble opinion are good films and should be seen. I would rather try to stomach a plate of brussel sprouts than start this film over.
 satisfied November 18, 2009
Mariia Byba
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
received in time. did not watch yet. But LEo is really a kid in this movie :)
PAINFUL to Watch But Truly BRILLIANT !!!! September 25, 2009
MB Silver
Leonardo DiCaprio takes us on a journey into the agonies of a teenager on the worst path possible. This movie descends into the depths of depravity and sadness. DiCaprio, as another reviewer wrote ,amazingly was but 20 years old when he turned in this powerhouse of a performance. Little by little we see the way he gets into this lost soul and makes him so believable and pathetically authentic. One of the best moments is when Dicaprio and the 2 buddies who followed him down into the sewers of human existence see the young man who
was a part of the gang but he stayed clean and persued his dreams as a basketball player. He is up there on the television living a healthy happy life than any of the three others could have shared. The look in Leonardo's eyes says it all, even in his drugged up state there was a miniscule possibility that he could get himself together and return to a decent life. Another wonderful scene was when the actor Ernie Hudson, takes DiCaprio home, seeing himself many years ago in a similar crisis and wanting to do the right thing to help a fallen friend. That was heartwrenching with DiCaprio deprived of heroin having a meltdown while Hudson tried to be a support, ignoring the most disgusting behavoir by Leonardo who looked like a wounded bird just trying to make it through the next 15 minutes. Also as brilliant as DiCaprio is Lorraine Bracco, who we will always of course think of as Tony Soprano's shrink, playing DiCaprio's Mom with love and she too has her own emotional meltdown in that wonderful scene where she is on one side of the door, and he is leaning in across the chain, desperate for a few bucks to feed his habit. She is forced to call the cops on her own out of control son. Of course this movie is based on a real man who found his way back to a happy and healthy and sane existence. How triumphant !!! Mark Wahlberg gave his own gritty and skilled performance of a teenager as lost as DiCaprio. Painful, but well worth watching.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 119
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