I made the point of approaching the film with an open mind considering "The Basketball diaries" was one of my favourite novels when I was a teenager. First of all, good points. Great performance from Di Caprio. The scene with the four boys playing basketball in the rain, set to Jom Carroll's "people Who Died" on the soundtrack, was for me the one scene that truly nailed the spirit and attitude of the book.Hence the two good points.<br /><br />Bad points. The film reduced its wonderful source material to just another preachy, moralistic, stating the obvious 'kids, say no to drugs' diatribe.It also didn't have the guts to push it main character's decent into the hell of drug addiction further. Example:the scene where he meets his first client in the public toilets. If,according to the film,is that how bad it got for the main character, it rendered the film completely unbelievable and reeking of boo-hoo self pity and Catholic guilt.<br /><br />In short, the film needed a strong sense of non-compromise if it was to get anywhere near the compelling vision that Jim Carroll depicted in the novel. Simply put, it fell into the trap that a great number of films about drugs and drug abuse fall into. They either glamourise, like "Dogs in Space" or "Less Than Zero, or preach, like this one.<br /><br />The three best films about drugs and drug abuse for me would have to be "Drugstore Cowboy" and "Trainspotting";"Requiem for A Dream", by Darren Aronofsky, would without a doubt be the finest film about drug abuse ever made,full stop.They neither glamourise of preach. They simply show the damage, both physical and emotional and in a candid and truthful way, that drug use can cause and they never judge. "Requiem for A Dream" especially.See that film instead, ore read the book of "The Basketball Daries".