Piedras y palos

On one hand, you have a viewer that may not understand the purpose of this film and has no desire or forethought to begin to do so. On the other, one that is perhaps more realistic in rating this film based on their version of the intent of the director.

Like The Boys Club, I look at this film as targeting 12-15 year old, boys particularly, faced with dealing with guns and violence in general. If a child is younger than that, it may be more destructive than productive, depending on the parent supervising. Older kids will think it is lame only because they want may want the target to be other, younger kids to avoid attention to themselves.

What I see is this. The film teaches the parents and the aforementioned aged youth, the value of peaceful resolution of issues, the seriousness of the mis-use of guns and the tremendous peer pressures that fall on kids that are not adults but are not really kids anymore either. Those that choose not to take the movie seriously or consider it crude, may not be realistic in their own assessment of the film's target age group, the lessons to be learned, the presumed goal of being realistic or may be in denial that this likely has happened in real life over and over in larger cities like LA, Chicago and New York.

I am a mentor of an at-risk youth in Portland, serve on the Board of Directors of a Police Activities League, have a son that is not old enough to watch this yet and am learning teen development by hands on experience. I am not an expert I wouldn't think, but I do see true value in this film and the lessons to learn from it for the audience that it was clearly made to cater to.

I welcome a debate or confirmation to discuss this if anyone chooses to do so. I promise to be open minded and as non-bias as I can.