Taglines: The true story of the death of innocence and the birth of an artist.
The Basketball Diaries transposes the late ’60s adolescence of writer/artist Jim Carroll to some unspecified time period at least 15 years later, further confusing the timeframe with three decades of rock music, some by Carroll himself. Jim (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his Catholic school chums are on the hottest basketball team in New York, but their friend Bobby (Michael Imperioli) languishes in the hospital with leukemia.
In-between typically boyish adventures, Jim scribbles in his notebook and experiments with sex and drugs. His group of friends begins to disintegrate after coach Swifty (Bruno Kirby) not only makes a pass at Jim, but also catches him and his pals using drugs on the court and kicks them off the team. Out of school and on the streets, Jim turns tricks, betrays friends, robs stores, and deals drugs to feed his heroin addiction. Not even the efforts of former addict Reggie (Ernie Hudson) can cure Jim. Mark Wahlberg appears as one of Jim’s basketball and drug buddies, while Carroll himself makes a memorable cameo as an addict who describes the almost Catholic rituals of shooting heroin.
The Basketball Diaries is a 1995 American coming of age crime drama film directed by Scott Kalvert, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lorraine Bracco, James Madio, and Mark Wahlberg. The film is an adaptation of Jim Carroll’s autobiographical work of the same name, telling the story of Carroll’s teenage years as a promising high school basketball player and writer who developed an addiction to heroin with his misguided friends.
Jim Carroll’s original “Basketball Diaries” was written in the 1960s (and later published in 1978), but the film is set in the 1990s. The Basketball Diaries soundtrack was released in 1995 by PolyGram to accompany the film, featuring songs from Pearl Jam and PJ Harvey. AllMusic rated it three stars out of five.
The film currently holds a 46% “Rotten” rating at the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert gave two stars out of four, concluding, “At the end, Jim is seen going in through a “stage door,” and then we hear him telling the story of his descent and recovery. We can’t tell if this is supposed to be genuine testimony or a performance. That’s the problem with the whole movie.”
About the Story
The film is an adaptation of poet and memoirist Jim Carroll’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) juvenile diaries chronicling his kaleidoscopic free-fall into the harrowing world of drug addiction. As a member of a seemingly unbeatable high school basketball squad, Jim’s life centers on the basketball court and the court becomes a metaphor for the world in his mind.
A best friend, Bobby (Michael Imperioli), who is dying of leukemia, a coach (“Swifty”) who takes unacceptable liberties with the boys on his team, teenage sexual angst, and an appetite for cocaine and heroin, all of which begin to encroach on young Jim’s dream of becoming a basketball star.
Soon, the dark streets of New York become a refuge from his mother’s mounting concern for her son. He cannot go home and his only escape from the reality of the streets is heroin, for which he steals, robs, and prostitutes himself. Only with the help of Reggie (Ernie Hudson), an older neighborhood friend with whom Jim “picked up a game” now and then, he is able to begin the long journey back to sanity, which ultimately ends with Jim’s incarceration in Riker’s Island for assault, robbery, resistance of arrest, and the possession of narcotics. After months that Jim spent in prison, he leaves and later does a talk show about his drug life, after turning down free drugs from his old friend, Pedro.
The Basketball Diaries movie trailer.
The Basketball Diaries (1995)
Directed by: Scott Kalvert
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Bruno Kirby, Lorraine Bracco, Ernie Hudson, Juliette Lewis, Patrick McGaw, James Madio, Michael Imperioli, Mark Wahlberg, Alexander Chaplin
Screenplay by: Bryan Goluboff
Production Design by: Christopher Nowak
Cinematography by: David Phillips
Film Editing by: Dana Congdon
Costume Design by: David C. Robinson
Set Decoration by: Harriet Zucker
Music by: Graeme Revell
MPAA Rating: R for graphic depiction of drug addiction with related strong violence,sexuality and language.
Distributed by: New Line Cinema
Release Date: April 21, 1995
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