I'll admit, I didn't even want to see this movie after reading the synopsis. I could tell right off the bat it was going to be one of THOSE movies (you all know what I'm talking about). Well I got pressured into it by a group of women who all thought it was so "real and raw and emotional" and were sharing tissues to wipe their tears while I sat there thinking "really? I PAID for this?". I could have gone to Oakland and watched people beat on each other and curse each other out and it would have had the same effect. And that's NOT what I like to do for entertainment.<br /><br />I found the whole thing to be almost cartoonish, the story pointless, and the characters bland and boring. I GET IT...there are people, in this case poor black people, who have terrible lives. But honestly, when this movie was done all I could think was that I am SO OVER the whole "black thing". OVER IT!!!. I'm not a prejudice person and I try so very hard to ignore some of the stereotypes that play out all around me every day and think that people are people and intelligence is intelligence and everyone has the ability to be a decent person but this movie wants to blow that idea all to hell. It make me feel like there are groups of people, sub cultures, cities even, that we should just wipe off the face of the earth because there will never be enough programs or charities or money to dig them out of the hole they put themselves in and they are just going to drag society down with them. And apparently it's a hole they don't even WANT to get out of.<br /><br />Bah. I don't write movie review, I've never written one before, but this was awful. I'm neither impressed with the acting or the story or the writing and I can't for the live of me figure out why it's getting such rave reviews, except may by people who equate "gritty" with "genius" because they don't know anything about the world and want to feel hip. Or because Oprah had something to do with it.