Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
A cheap, powerful drug emerges during a recession, igniting a moral panic fueled by racism. Explore the complex history of crack in the 1980s.
Sam Pollard's documentary covers well-trodden ground on the crack epidemic but brings a sharp political lens — foregrounding systemic racism, CIA complicity allegations, and Reagan-era policy failures with clarity and urgency. The narrative structure is competent but fairly linear, relying heavily on talking-head interviews and archival footage, which is visually conventional for the genre. Its indictment of the moral panic and racialized enforcement is pointed but not uniquely framed compared to peers like 13th or The House I Live In. The ending trails off without a strong concluding argument, leaving the film feeling incomplete despite its solid foundation.