Straight Outta Hunters Point

First of, this is not a film that gloryfies the thug life. What this film does is give you an inside look at a community that has been destroyed by poverty, racism and desperation.

It doesn't stand on a soap box and preach, what it does is more powerful than that. What it does is show you straight from the inside, what it's like to live in the prisons we call ghettos. Several times I've driven through Hunter's Point and been witness to the appocalytic scenario, boarded up homes, garbage littering the streets, and extreme poverty. What sickens me the most is how in the richest country in the world, in one of the richest cities, we could allow places like this to exist.

Kevin Epps, exposes this crime without ever saying a word about it being wrong. He just let's the camera roll, and the more it rolls, the more discontent you'll feel about the way this community is marginalized and mistreated.

Not only do we met the people living in this community close up, we learn about the increased cancer rates and PG+E's and the US Navy's unkept promise of cleaning and restoring the toxic conditions they've created. We learn about the police brutality which claims the lives of the people in this community and the desperation and hopelessness that has made it's young people look to crime and drug's for a way out. There is a message of hope, through the creative forces inside this community which is home to Gangsta Rap, some of the most successful have even found a way out through music.

To sum up we get an inside look at a place we would never ever see first hand. I give this 10/10, In my opinion this film was better than anything out of hollywood this last year, watch it if you can find a copy.

Hunters Point lies above Candlestick Park in San Francisco and is comprised of federally subsidized housing projects left over after the ship building industry shut down when WWII ended. The area was left extremely polluted and it is designated as a super-fund cleanup site.

The movie was shot on video almost entirely in Hunters Point. The characters you meet are drug dealing, rap-listening, gangsters who have been raised in this environment and seem content with their situation.

The film succeeds in showing the viewer what it's like to be a black drug dealer living in one of the roughest neighborhoods in the country. Nowhere in the film do we meet characters who want a better life outside of the gang lifestyle, so it is hard to find compassion for the people living this gritty existence.

The movie is a documentary, and as such, I expected there would be a message for the audience. There is a half-hearted attempt to blame the plight of these people on a number of factors: the polluted environment, the lack of jobs in the area, or the prevalence of guns and drugs. The fact of the matter is these folks just like being thugs so there are no victims (the children are victims).

The scariest part of this movie is that these people and places exist across the U.S. and the people clearly have no regard for the law or anyone other than themselves.

I say check it out. Seven Stars.