Product Details

• Actors: Leo Fitzpatrick, Justin Pierce, Chloë Sevigny, Sarah Henderson, Joseph Chan
• Directors: Larry Clark
• Writers: Larry Clark, Harmony Korine, Jim Lewis
• Producers: Cary Woods, Cathy Konrad, Christine Vachon, Gus Van Sant
• Format: Color, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Lions Gate
• DVD Release Date: November 7, 2000
• Run Time: 91 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (372 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00004YA6G
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,078 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #54 in

  Movies & TV > Drama > Coming of Age

• For more information about "Kids" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Larry Clark's controversial film about New York City adolescents walking the AIDS tightrope is also an unblinking look at the dehumanizing rituals of growing up. But it really doesn't add up to more than the sum of its various shocks--virgin busting, skinny-dipping, male callousness--overlayed with middle-class disapproval. Clark is hectoring us for cutting kids loose at a terrible time in modern American history, but so are a lot of other people, who also offer alternatives and ideas. The film does nothing to push us toward new thoughts, new solutions, new dreams. It is more like a window onto our worst fantasies about what our children are doing out there on the streets. --Tom Keogh

Product Description
Powerful and passionate, colorful and compelling, Larry Clark's KIDS is 24 frenetic hours in the life of a group of contemporary teenagers who, like all teenagers, believe they are invincible. With breathtaking images from one of the world's most renowned photographers, KIDS is a deeply affecting, no-holds-barred landscape of words and images, depicting with raw honesty the experiences, attitudes and uncertainties of innocence lost. KIDS gets under the skin and lingers, long after it is viewed. The kids at the core of the story are just that: teenagers living the urban melee of modern-day America. But while these kids dwell in the big city, their story could, quite possibly, happen anywhere.

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Raw. Like watching a documentary on a different species, August 9, 2005

By	Schtinky "Schtinky" (California) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

My pets behave better than this. And yet, this is what kids are doing. This is not an exaggeration or a class statement; these are real kids in real neighborhoods strolling the streets with no moral direction.

It really was almost like watching a documentary on a primate species, how the males and females gather in separate groups to chirp and chatter at each other until it's mating season. Then they all get together in a big pile and have at it with whoever is handiest.

The plot? A day in the life of aimless kids: virgin conquests, shoplifting, public urinating, drinking, smoking, getting high, breaking into a pool for a skinny dip, street fighting (complete with a brutal, perhaps deadly beating for a simple transgression), raves, public fornication, and one girl's discovery that she has AIDS.

There are two scenes that stand out in the movie, the first being when Telly briefly comes home, and his mother is sitting on her hinder, smoking, nursing her new baby, and watching TV. She barely notices Telly is in the room, except to tell him to be quiet so he wouldn't wake the baby. Parenting at its very worst, and you just know that little baby will grow up the same as Telly.

The second is the scene where Casper wakes up after the party. He moves from the tub he passed out in, past his friend who is unconscious over the toilet, to the kitchen where he immediately drains the dregs of the leftover beer bottles and lights a cigarette. He then goes on to take advantage of a girl who is passed out. Wow. Another morning in hell.

Larry Clark has done pretty well with Kids, though his work with 'Bully' was better, smoother, less raw while still being on the cutting edge. The performances from Leo Fitzpatrick (Telly), Justin Pierce (Casper), Chloe Sevigny (Jennie), and Rosario Dawson (Ruby) are more than acceptable. Clark certainly has a talent for bringing teenage angst and degradation to the screen, and for using brutal scenes to hone his dagger of truth home to those brave enough to watch his films. Enjoy!

69 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A depressing and numbing view the idle times of kids, July 7, 2002

By	Patrick L. Randall "Big Irish Guy" (Silver Spring, MD) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Kids (Kissing Art) (Unrated) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"Kids" goes right to the heart of everything that parents fear will become of their children. The youths that inhabit this film are not just wayward... they are violent, amoral kids whose state of evolution seems to have regressed to something more primal. The male lead, if you can call him that, in this movie is a truly horrific animal named Telly (played with scary realism by actor Leo Fitzpatrick). Telly seems to exist for no other reason than drink, get high, get into fights, and, oh yeah, deflower as many virgins as possible. He cajoles his conquests by telling them exactly what they want to hear, and once he's accomplished his mission, he will have nothing to do with them. He says he prefers them because they aren't all dirty or have diseases. Yet, the irony is, he is unknowingly carrying the AIDS virus around and endangering his conquests because it would seem that one of his 'virgins' was not quite honest with him. It's not hard to see how Telly can become such a monster. He has no moral compass around which to develop. One brief scene takes place during a brief stopover at his house before he and his friend, Casper, take off for more mayhem. His mother is sitting in the living room, folding laundry and watching TV while being almost totally oblivious to Telly being there. When Telly asks for some money, she says no and asks him when he's going to get a job, he just says that he's looking and then he goes into her room and takes some money, anyway. She wouldn't know if it was missing.
The actual plot of this movie, as thin as it is, focuses on a girl named Jennie (who was one of Telly's conquests) searching the streets of the city to find Telly and stop his virgin conquest because of the AIDS virus she just found out he gave her. Her search is intercut with scenes of a brutal gang beating by Telly and his friends of guy who popped off his mouth, club kids engaging in animalistic carnal behavior, and a morally bankrupt party where kids as young as 10 are drinking up, getting high and participating in even more carnal behavior.
"Kids" gets a positive rating because there is nothing phony about its unflinching view of the existence of kids with too much time on their hands and no direction in their lives. It does not get a higher rating because the images are extremely graphic and difficult to digest. This movie is not for everyone, but, if someone feels the can handle the subject matter, it is a valid tale.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars one of the most overrated, pretentious films of the decade., June 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Kids (Unrated) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

One day, my generation is going to get fed up with seeing themselves presented in films like this. "Kids" is the most frustrating film I've seen, and it's not because of the content. My frustration lies in the one-sided, asinine approach that Larry Clark used when filming this. Moreover, the movie has a lack of consciousness, and its the lack of a voice of reason that makes it all the more hard to stomach.

This is not "educational", "a masterpiece", "a wake-up call to the world", "a portrait of adolescent angst", or even "one of the best movies ever made." Those of you who say it really shows what it's like to be a teen are bullshi++ing; if you lived a life of debauchery and hedonism as shown in the film, it's highly unlikely that you would have the mental capacity to connect to amazon.com and share your thoughts. I've known people that grew up in NYC, from South Bronx to Crown Heights to Mount Vernon: kids my age that actually faced and conquered many of the hardships in the film. The vast majority of them feel the same way I do about this film.

By far, the biggest sin that the film is guilty of is overgeneralization. Whether it intended to or not, the film leaves the impression that this is behavior typical of teenagers. Of course, if I were to generalize all police officers as racist SOBs based on the incident where NYPD officers shot an unarmed Haitian immigrant 41 times, I'd look pretty foolish.

The ambition was there - there's no denying that. But somewhere along the way, true-to-life storytelling was sacraficed for shock value. Ernest Dickerson's 1992 film "Juice" was a much more truthful tale about inner-city youth in NYC than this film. I'd highly recommend that film instead of this hollow morality tale pretending to be a meaningful reality-based drama.