"The Basketball Diaries" (1995)

“The Basket Ball Diaries” is based on the autobiography of writer, Jim Carroll, telling of his days as a great high school basketball player and of his gradual descent into drug addiction. Rated 18s the content won’t be everybody’s cup of tea, shall we say...But I think for what the story is about, it’s portrayed extremely well. For this reason, I would say it’s quite possibly an underrated film.

We are given a good sense and understanding of the characters before they actually start taking the drugs, so the process is very gradual, which gave so much more impact to the actual descent into the drug usage. We can see clearly where it all went wrong and we feel for the characters because they opened the film with such promise of good lives as they were all very skillful basketball players, but threw it all away. I think it really gets across just how horrible the whole world of drugs actually is in a very realistic and powerful way.

What I like about this film too is the continuous voice-over throughout, letting the audience know of Jim’s thoughts and feelings amidst the various scenarios he is presented with. Being a poet, the narrations are poetic with a nice fluidity about them. Given the fact that Jim Carroll was in fact a real person, probably makes this film even more powerful. There are some pretty heavy scenes, particularly the withdrawal ones...So, being able to see how awful a time he went through and knowing that he actually came out the other side enough to tell the tale, is remarkable.

(Leonardo DiCaprio with the real Jim Carroll)

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jim Carroll amazingly. The scene in which Jim is being weaned off the drugs is just fantastic. It coherently demonstrates just how brilliant and versatile his acting abilities actually are. I don’t know that there are many other actors who could have delivered such a role as well as he did. He is honestly nothing short of amazing in this movie, especially given the fact he was just out of his teens. How the hell he hasn’t yet won an Oscar is beyond me. I mean, just watch this clip:

As I say, there are scenes that won’t be to everybody’s liking...but even if you only ever see it once, I do think this film could be worth a look! 

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