Review: The Basketball Diaries

Based on the autobiography of Jim Carroll (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), and telling the story of his growing up in 60s New York. We see his beginnings as a writer and potentially gifted basketball player at a Catholic school and his predilection for juvenile thuggery with his buddies. Eventually, after the death of a good friend (played rather well by an almost unrecognisable Michael Imperioli) from a terminal illness, Carroll starts to go off the rails and into a period of heavy heroin addiction, as do some of his pals (Mark Wahlberg among them), and it seems to derail his potential completely. He even turns to gay prostitution for drug money. Ernie Hudson plays Carroll’s mentor of-sorts Reggie, who might just be able to save Carroll’s life before it’s too late. Lorraine Bracco is Carroll’s long-suffering mother, Bruno Kirby is a basketball coach, Patrick McGaw is the one buddy who wises up early on, Juliette Lewis plays a skanky junkie, whilst the Daniel twins (Brittany and the more rarely seen Cynthia) play a couple of twins Carroll hooks up with. The real-life Jim Carroll has a small role as another pathetic junkie.

 

Having waited more than 20 years to see this 1995 drama from late director Scott Kalvert (whose only other feature directorial effort was the minor “Deuces Wild”) and screenwriter Bryan Goluboff (writer-producer of a lot of TV like “Blue Bloods” and “Law & Order SVU”), I have to say I don’t really see the hype nor the controversy (to a certain extent). Adapted from Jim Carroll’s autobiography, it’s excellently performed and starts fairly interestingly, but I can’t quite get around to recommending it. It’s not really my kind of thing, and let’s face it, the characters are pretty repellent.

 

The rather harsh, downbeat coming-of-age portion of the film was for me, far more compelling than the drug addiction slide of the rest of the film. Still, Leonardo DiCaprio is excellent in the lead, Mark Wahlberg is quite solid in support, despite sounding like the most Bostonian Manhattanite you’ll ever hear. You certainly won’t have any problems believing Marky Mark as a thuggish Catholic boy, that’s for sure. Whether the subject matter is personally interesting to me or not, it’s certainly quite shocking to see just how hard and fast these young people fall into drug addiction hell. Ernie Hudson is perfectly cast as well, in a mentor/father figure role, and the sorely missed Bruno Kirby is always good value. All I’ll say about his character here is that he plays a basketball coach in a Catholic school. ‘nuff said, right? Lorraine Bracco gets one absolutely heart-breaking, almost unwatchable scene towards the end where her son comes begging for money and she needs to make a helluva tough (but correct) decision. I may not be terribly interested in druggie stories (unless it’s much more about the rehab/recovery period like “Clean and Sober”), but it’s a really gut-wrenching, powerful scene that makes you wish the rest of her scenes weren’t so pathetic and clichéd. Aside from that one scene, she’s not really afforded the opportunity to impress. As for that controversy, I can see why one specific scene caused a stir when the Columbine incident happened (the killers were influenced by it), but in 2016 the dream sequence is ill-advised, yet not particularly difficult to stomach. The rest of the film is not especially shocking, nor is it especially memorable overall.

 

Parts are better than the whole here, I think, though I’m surprised Kalvert (who committed suicide at just 49) didn’t really go on to make several more films. It’s a personal taste thing for the most part, I wasn’t terribly interested in the major subject matter. I enjoyed the first half of this film, and Leonardo DiCaprio gives one of his best-ever performances. However, once the film starts to focus on Carroll’s descent into drug addiction hell, my interest waned somewhat. It’s not bad, some of you will love it, but it’s just not my kind of thing.

 

Rating: C+