Joe
Many of us have been touched by the damage that Class A drugs can do, and for those affected close to home, this is a difficult watch.We have here an unflinching documentary which is no holds barred as the interviewees are the talking heads explaining their exasperations, failures and hopes to kick the heroin addiction. Giving free reign to the interviewees is quite a brave move, but it works and you feel that you are learning something. It's good to see it let them paint themselves and not resort to filming tactics to try to humiliate them.One of the most difficult parts is watching the help group for the parents of the addicts. They are honest and straight, and it can be quite heart sinking to see this.There is not necessarily anything ground breaking here, it's a window into a world where those there are in a downward spiral. It's difficult viewing but still interesting.Give it a viewing. A good job done by the documentary makers and hope others follow their example in how to tackle such a subject.
MisterWhiplash
This is a documentary that you can find on HBO on-demand and it's a part of a documentary series looking at issues in different parts of the country. It's a look at heroin addicts (among some other substances connected with it, like oxycodine and painkillers), all living on Cape Cod in Massachusetes. The focus is simply on the addicts themselves, which is fine up until a certain point. It's a collection of people who are in desperate ways, some started on their paths with no desire whatsoever to do drugs (some via bad accidents where they needed something to deal with the pain, which painkillers don't really do anyway in a concrete way), and may be facing death (and some of them, sadly, lose their lives in the course of the making of the documentary - a few of them it's easy to see, but others it's a tragic case of relapsing after being sober for a while), and it's compelling. It can't help but being so when looking at such desperate characters who, by their own admission, are facing perpetual downward spirals without proper treatment.I think if I wished for something more it would have been two things: that there was a focus on the location itself - it's in the title so it's not outside the realm of question - as Cape Cod is an interesting and captivating place where people come for vacation year in and year out (it's mentioned briefly how people who stay on the cape don't have much to do, which isn't very detailed). Why is the Cape different than other places? Is it because of the state itself and what it offers (how is it different than, say, Florida which is also a tourist destination)? Or is there something else that attracts these people to use in this place vs any other place (perhaps addiction is becoming rampant nationwide and this is just the focus, but if so why).The other thing was a little more focus from the medical side of it, or just another perspective to mix in with all of the testimonials from the addicts; the access is without much in the way of a filter - you feel like you're often there in the room - and yet there's no other voice to talk about why heroin addiction has become so rampant in this section of the country. This isn't to say this is something to avoid, far from it - if you're on HBO and see this and are compelled to watch something new about the world of heroin addiction, this has some good moments and tragic details. But the subjects carry some depth on other programs like Intervention.
