Product Details

• Actors: Evan Ross, Stephanie Lugo, Maurice Blake, Omar Regan, Jeffrey Lorenzo
• Directors: Buddy Giovinazzo
• Writers: Buddy Giovinazzo
• Producers: Melissa Wilfley, Braxton Pope, Hector Tinoco, Jeff Kirshbaum, John Saviano
• Format: Color, Director's Cut, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
• DVD Release Date: August 25, 2009
• Run Time: 99 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B002BVYBEC
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #121,771 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Life Is Hot in Cracktown (Unedited)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

LIFE IS HOT IN CRACKTOWN - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Brutality, June 22, 2010

By 

Douglas King (Cincinnati, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Life Is Hot in Cracktown (Unedited) (DVD)

In the beginning of the film "Life is Hot in Cracktown" a young man named Romeo extends a playful invitation to a young lady. "Come with me ... I wanna show you something." He leads her by the hand down an alley, at the end of which is a mattress on the ground and a group of his friends, who proceed to brutally gang rape her.

The film doesn't get any easier or nicer from there. "Life is Hot in Cracktown", the title of which sounds like either a dark comedy or a grindhouse B-movie, clearly aims to show humanity at its most brutal, soulless, and cruel. The viewer is taken on a tour of a poor, inner-city neighborhood, where most of the characters have ties to hard drugs, either through being addicts, dealers, or police officers. The combination of poverty, despair, and drug abuse has created situations that range from bleak to horrific.

"Precious" was a film that balanced its brutal portrayal of urban poverty with enough humor and fantasy to keep it from being too bleak. "Life is Hot in Cracktown" aims for pure gritty realism. At its best, it succeeds, and at its worst, it seems exploitive and sensationalistic.

What redeems the film is the performances. Kudos to Evan Ross, who plays Romeo, for infusing his monstrous, sadistic character with tiny shreds of humanity. When I first saw Kerry Washington in the film, I thought she was basically just playing the same character (a drug addicted prostitute) that she played in "The Dead Girl", until it quickly becomes clear that her character is actually a transgendered woman, and she delivers the powerful, multi-faceted performance needed. In fact, most of the actors, even the children, give their characters the depth and humanity needed in order to keep the whole film from turning into a trite morality play.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unfortunate Title, But A Very Well Done Flick..., September 2, 2009

By 

B. Merritt "filmreviewstew.com" (WWW.FILMREVIEWSTEW.COM, Pacific Grove, California United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Life Is Hot In Cracktown (DVD)

(What's this?)

I'm gonna have to eat some crow here, especially after complaining about the last film I reviewed, Shadowheart. Both it and this one - LIFE IS HOT IN CRACKTOWN - came to me via Amazon's Vine Program. And I was becoming rather tired of the careless films that tended to populate The Vine's DVD list. Well, Life Is Hot In Cracktown has reformed me ...somewhat. It isn't great. It isn't stupendous. But it is gritty, real, and put together in a way that made it extremely watchable.

All of these characters are well-rounded and exceptionally well acted. There will be someone that every watcher will be able to connect with. Whether it's the young boy looking after his younger sister as his mother and her boyfriend get high and leave them alone for days, or the pre-op transsexual Marybeth (Kerry Washington, The Last King of Scotland) and her emotionally labile boyfriend Benny, or Manny, the guy working two jobs trying to support his wife Concetta (Shannyn Sossaman, Wristcutters - A Love Story) and their colicky baby, or the gang-banger Romeo who's life on the street is turning him into a dangerous individual, there's someone here for everyone.

The interest comes in the fact that you watch most of these people make horrible decisions or do terrible things, yet you cannot look away or even condemn them. They are the best and worst of us all, and it shows a rugged side of humanity that most of us would rather not see ...except to realize that one of these people might have been you had you not had a few breaks. It's frightening and enlightening.

The best part of the film is toward the end as we watch each person forced to make a decision and wonder at what the outcome will be. It is a turning point in their lives and we are given front row seats to it. Amazing how it all came together.

Watching the special features, I have to disagree with Kerry Washington's comment about transsexuals never being shown on film in any meaningful way. The film Transamerica focused specifically on this subject and was a fantastic film. Just FYI, Kerry.

Anyway, this film is actually quite good, even though I found the title a bit unfortunate.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A unflinching and realistic look at life in the inner city., August 28, 2009

By 

Joseph P. Ulibas "Captain Couth" (Florin, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Life Is Hot In Cracktown (DVD)

(What's this?)

Life is Hot in Cracktown (2009) is a movie based upon a collection of short stories written by the director Buddy Giovinazzo. The film follows four story lines: a man who works two jobs trying to support his family and move out of the inner city, a brother and sister who try to survive in a roach infested hotel, a pre-op transsexual who works the streets to make ends meet and a young hoodlum who lives an empty life with no future to look forward to. They are just some of the faceless people who try to make a life inside a poverty stricken ghetto. even though they have a bleak present, something inside of these people drives them to try and look for a way out of there lives and look for a brighter future.

I really enjoyed this movie. Most of the films I see about the inner city are full of cartoonish and stereotypical characters that you don;t care about. The people in this film are real as the person next door. I found a lot of the dialog and situations these people are faced with to be real and very authentic. Buddy Giovinazzo has come a long way since his first film (Combat ShocK) but he still retains the gritty realism and spirit of that film in his latest project. He seems to have a genuine feel for his characters and none of that pseudo-liberal guilt complex that similar films that come out of Hollywood have. No phony baloney middle class guilt trip here and I really appreciate that in a film like this one.

The DVD comes with a twenty minute featurette on the making of the film, several deleted scenes (which should have been added in my opinion) a trailer for the movie and a couple of sneak peak trailers. The film's soundtrack is available in 2.0 mono (which is the best one to listen to because the other one is in 5.1 and that one is too spread out to hear some of the dialog), I have to give this DVD my highest recommendation possible. An awesome film that will punch you in the gut with a shot of reality.