Product: Kids (1995)
Rating: 4.0
DISTURBING
One day in the life of a bunch of multi-racial east coast kids. Never has the culture of diversity been made to look so threatening to middle America; never has "today's youth" seemed more lost. The barely teens in this movie steal, fight, do drugs, talk vulgar trash, vandalize, and in the case of one of them, a true moron who works an improbable Casanova charm on barely pubescent girls in order to bed as many virgins as he can, unknowingly and probably uncaringly spread HIV. This movie came out while I was in high school and I didn't get around to seeing it till 2001, and I mention that because from that vantage point I was able to step back and be every bit as appalled as the filmmakers meant me to be, whereas earlier I might have seen this film, as others have, merely as an exercise in shocking "grown-ups." Kids might be tough to watch, it might alienate you, but I think deep down a perceptive viewer will give credit where it's due for managing to create a confrontingly vivid portrait of `90's youth on a rough and filthy canvas.