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100Warmly funny and very moving.
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100The Boys of Baraka leaves you outraged in the way only the best documentaries can.
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100Overflowing with comedy and drama, The Boys of Baraka unfolds on the mean streets of Baltimore and in the wide-open spaces of Kenya.
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There are many tragedies and accomplishments here, without the engineered uplift afflicting any number of lesser documentaries.
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80An entertaining experience as the filmmakers focus on a few select boys who provide a wealth of charm as they struggle with their new surroundings.
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80Ewing and Grady could have done a better job filling in each boy's back story, as well as explaining exactly how Baraka started and what its agenda is. But the film is clearly a labor of love, portraying the lives of its subjects with tremendous intimacy and passion.
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80A moving, troubling documentary. Moving because of the nature of the problem it explores, troubling because the film can't help but underline that simple solutions are never going to present themselves, no matter how much we want them to.
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80Rich, sweet, densely layered and deeply satisfying. A film that might have been a dry exercise in earnest nonfiction filmmaking becomes a soaring, artistically complex testament to survival, character and hope.
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80Sensitive, intelligent, enlightening, and sometimes surprising.
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75Here is a movie that makes you want to do something. Cry, or write a check, or howl with rage.
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75The results are amazing, though bittersweet, and demonstrate how complicated and expensive it is (though not impossible) to break the cycle of poverty, crime and lack of education.
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75Seventy percent of black boys in Baltimore do not graduate from high school. They're more likely to land in jail -- or a cemetery. But there is hope, according to The Boys of Baraka, an uplifting documentary.
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75Gripping.
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The docu is not visually innovative, but the content more than makes up for what it lacks in style.
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70The Boys of Baraka is so rich that you wish there were more of it.
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50The most interesting moments in the film are the videotapes sent back and forth between the parents and students, as they communicate the sadness of children separated from their distant families.
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50The kids absolutely win your heart, but there's something off-putting in the film's lazy juxtaposition of unexamined Negro dysfunction tropes (absent fathers, violent streets) against an idyllic Africa tended by white benevolence.
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50Ewing and Grady practically squander the African material, and The Boys Of Baraka doesn't really come to life until the boys return to Baltimore for what turns out to be a permanent summer vacation, due to political unrest overseas.
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50Feels achingly sad and frustratingly incomplete.
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40The Boys of Baraka's heart may be in the right place, but its portrait of poor Baltimore kids selected to attend boarding school in Kenya is rife with suspect perspectives.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 3 out of 3
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Mixed: 0 out of 3
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Negative: 0 out of 3
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K.Douglas7Like Hoop Dreams,both hopeful and heartbreaking.Unlike H.D.,not enough background material to fully satisfy the audience.
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M&V10We both loved the Boys of Baraka. Especially the hedgehog!
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GregoryM.8