Our America

The movie is based on a true story of two boys growing up in the projects of Chicago. They get the opportunity to be reporters for NPR. They bring equipment with them to school and around the community to show what goes on in their daily lives. The documentaries they made were controvercial and original. This movie gave an insightful look at the situation and the lack of future image the residents of the inner-city projects experience. One of the boys had no future and the other may have had a future, with help they both had a bright future. Anyone studying a career in Justice or Juvenile Justice should watch this. Related movies of interest if you liked this one include: Fresh, and Boys in the Hood.

For what ever it worth this movie/documentary is extremely boring from the beginning to the very end. The keep on ever going of using both black/white and color film that keep on switching is really annoying and very much unattractive.

The story is same old same old, talking about the bad black people neighborhood and tried to bring out the truth and tried to make us the viewer feel bad for them. At end (if you even watch it to the end) you will actually feel bad and asked one self "How did I managed to watch this entire film?"The film is sure not worth a watch cause it is damn boring.

Rating: 4/10

First of all, disregard anything the last post said. "Socially Irresponsible" is the last thing yous should say about this movie. If you want to call anything or body irresponsible, it should be our government for allowing fellow Americans to live like this. I noticed the person who posted last is from orange county and its really crazy that people who don't live in these situations are so quick to judge. This movie was one of the best projections of the "projects" that I've ever seen. Growing up in South Central L.A and Chicago's Robert Taylors, I'm here to tell you that EVERYTHING that was mentioned in the movie is true. This is one of the best "hood" movies I've seen yet. And as far as the game they were playing on the overpass, when you are poor, you'll find fun things to do on nothing. Of course it wasn't right, but kids are doing far worse things than that.

"Our America" follows the lives of two African-American teenagers who become reporters for the NPR. They first start out by recording their daily lives growing up in a rough Chicago neighborhood. As time goes on, they start to move on to bigger subjects such as exposing the troubled lives of people in their neighborhood. They soon gain national attention when they cover a story involving two boys (ages 10 and 11) who cold-bloodily murder a four year-old boy by throwing him out of a 14th story window.

This is a truly touching story that really shows us the brutality of African-Americans living in rough neighborhoods. The acting is great too. Ernest R. Dickerson who directs this film, was also the cinematographer for several of Spike Lee's films and he really makes this movie look good. Constantly alternating between black and white and color, the film really captures the essence of the characters.

"Our America" gets a 10. Don't miss it.

"Our America" tells of two black juvi's who are given recorders so they can do a radio documentary of their project/ghetto. An unfortunate but well intentioned flick, "OA" has nothing new to offer and appears to be a misguided attempt to expose the real truth behind the projects (drugs, gangs, crime, cockroaches, etc.) as if we haven't had our fill of ghetto flicks. What is worse, our heros play a game called "Knockout" which involves dropping rocks from a freeway overpass which everyone knows is as potentially lethal as the gangbangers shooting up the "hood" with their Uzzis and for which they receive a mere reprimand. Stupid tripe not worth the time. (F)