Review of The Interrupters (2011) by Nate W — 07 Feb 2012

Over the years, I have seen some great movies, and included in those are some truly wonderful documentaries. And with Steve James's "The Interrupters" comes one of the absolute very best.

The film follows the year in the lives of a few noble, dedicated people who work for Chicago's Ceasefire program. These people go into the poor, violent parts of Chicago city streets and interrupt the violence. Basically, they help out people who start to show signs of falling down a path of violence, drugs, and gangs. Their goal is to stop them from ruining their lives, and hopefully learn instead to enrich their own life and those around them.

I found myself extremely captivated and moved by the various people we follow in this story. One woman, Ameena Matthews, shows both a fierceness and tenderness as she tries to encourage non-violence and the importance of giving children opportunity. Ameena has one terrific scene on a park bench with a young woman who's drug abuse and temper has caused her life to spiral downward, and Ameena wants desperately to save her. But for me the films greatest scene occurs when another interrupter, Cobe Williams, brings a teenage boy who just got released from juvenile hall after serving a sentence for robbery, back to the same barbershop he and some misfit friends held up a few years prior. The power of the speech of the barbershop owner directed to the teenager is one of the most moving scenes I've scene in any movie in years.

Simply put, I don't write this much about every movie, but I just feel this one deserves it. Steve James also was responsible for the masterful documentary "Hoop Dreams" from the early 90's, and he makes a movie pretty much on par to that film with this vitally important piece of work here with "The Interrupters".