Product Details

• Actors: Rosario Dawson, Lou Taylor Pucci, Naomie Harris, Paul Dano, Frankie Shaw
• Directors: Mark Webber
• Format: AC-3, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Subtitles: Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Peace Arch Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: July 14, 2009
• Run Time: 87 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0025XUTK6
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #301,814 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Studio: Peace Arch Home Entertain Release Date: 07/07/2009 Run time: 87 minutes Rating: R

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quietly powerful urban drama, August 8, 2009

By 

Roland E. Zwick (Valencia, Ca USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Explicit Ills (DVD)

Crumbling, hollowed-out buildings, trash-strewn alleyways and weed-infested empty lots provide the backdrop for "Explicit Ills," a low-keyed, understated account of a group of largely unrelated people struggling to make a go of things amidst poverty and urban decay in Philadelphia. Yet, despite the grimness of the setting, the movie offers a basis for renewal and hope through a cast of characters who don`t exactly fit into the stereotypical slum-drama mold - and in the film's commitment to social justice through unity and action.

In terms of form, Mark Webber's film is more a series of vignettes than a conventionally structured narrative, an approach that actually works quite well given the slightly amateurish, rough-around-the-edges nature of the piece. Yet, despite limited financial resources, Webber has fashioned a stylish, sometimes even quite visionary work that clearly cares about its characters and the community to which they belong.

Those characters include a young couple caught up in the web of drug addiction; an aspiring actor who's struggling with depression; a seven-year-old chess player who gets picked on at school; a sweet-natured teenager who's trying hard to impress his girl; a pot-smoking mother who's having to counsel her son to stay away from the drug till he's older; and another mother (played by Rosario Dawson) who's desperate to get some much-needed medicine for her asthmatic child. The characters have little in common with one another except that they happen to live in the same geographical locale and they're all trying to do the best they can with what fate and, in some cases, their own choices and actions have led them to. The movie ends on a powerful note of optimism and reconciliation after a heartbreaking and gut-wrenching event befalls two of the main characters.

When all is said and done, Webber's first directorial effort is more a work of "promise" than a fully realized work of art in its own right. But if your taste runs more towards the experimental and the "hip" and less towards the stale conventions of commercial moviemaking, then "Explicit Ills" might well be the movie for you.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Okay, March 29, 2010

By 

Nicole Moore "Sunshyne Book" (Stockbridge, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Explicit Ills (DVD)

This movie turned out not to be as good as advertised. I received in a timely fashion and it was in great shape though.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Is it over yet?!, September 27, 2009

By 

Just Me (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Explicit Ills (DVD)

From the first impressions that I derived from the trailer I was anxious to see what I thought would be a very moving story of reality and poverty right here in America. Sadly, this was a poorly written attempt to convey such reality to others. It simply was.., all over the place with absolutely no continuity of story. Aside from a good cast, I could hardly wait for this one to be over!