Black Tar Heroin: The Dark End of the Street (2000)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This film should definitely be shown as a wake up call for impressionable young people. As these kids mention several times in this movie: "We watched this Sid & Nancy movie, and it lead to this and that" Really, it sometimes doesn't take more than that for a kid to experiment. "Let's be cool, and show a two fingered salute to this tedious world, let's pretend to be rock-stars!" Many young people look up to artists who romanticize the junkie-lifestyle. The problem is that artists usually have the money to buy drugs, places to live etc. Young minds doesn't think of all the gut wrenching horrors and desperation that come in the wake of a junkie-lifestyle (ask Sid how fun his last days were). If this film prevents young people becoming some idiotic Sid Vicious, Courtney Love wannabes, it has served a purpose.

the video jacket for this movie says "makes 'Trainspotting' look like an after school special, and they ain't lying. this is the best movie ever about hard drug use - unromantic, colorful, real. the first poster is correct that some gratuitously bad votes have pulled down this first-rate documentary, which should not be seen by squeamish viewers or people looking to have 'entertainment' with their popcorn and soda. no reliance on special effects, contrived whirlwind plots, just the real deal - interesting characters with life stories of a kind your typical middle-class film buff never comes across, parallel stories that develop organically. a great example that you can make a good flick on a small budget (and vice-versa)...

This documentary came on HBO at 3:45 in the morning, and having skipped it in the past when I had other things to do, I decided to forego sleep for the night in order to see this. I was expecting it to be depressing, but no one could really be prepared for the horrible stories and images of the lives these young people have lived and are currently living. They resort to prostitution, robbery, anything to get their costly daily fix(es), and we are right there watching them follow their downward spirals to what we sadly know will inevitably be a slow, lonely, painful death, whether it be on or off camera. I agree wholeheartedly that this movie is too disgusting to look at at points, yet one that everyone should see, just don't expect to come out of it in too good a mood. If you found yourself affected by the plight of the characters in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream,check out the even more saddening (I know it's hard to believe) stories of some real, live addicts.

The people in this documentary are the saddest, most pathetic group I've ever seen in my life. They shoot up, prostitute, then repeat. Unflinching, pretty hardcore. HBO makes really good documentaries, not trying to sugarcoat or alter society, they convey it to us with a style that is not added, but already there.