The Bronx, USA

I am happy for the producers of this film that they were able to make a tribute to their friendship and neighborhood but I felt no connection to these men or their Bronx even though I am also from the Bronx. The Bronx as I know it is not the same Bronx that they knew, that Bronx is gone and their story was pretty boring unfortunately. Though again, I am very happy for them.

I was looking forward to a "documentary" on the Bronx...what I got was a fluffy walk down memory lane. Other than learning that the Bronx is North of Manhattan I didn't learn a single thing about what makes it a unique or special place. All the friendship based themes could be applied to many places. Seemed to morph into a high school grad class story. Good for background TV while dusting the furniture.

This "documentary" celebrates the history and diversity of the Bronx (duh!) . I already knew from the opening song and dance number, that this was something more up my grandfathers alley. If you like The Lawrence Welk Show you will enjoy this old fashioned upbeat celebration of the Bronx and its people. In other words it is boring AF.

The social media craze is really annoying. No sooner do you let someone be your "friend" then they start sending you more information about their lives than you ever wanted to know. "Here's what I'm eating." "Here's where I live." "Here's where I visiting". "This is my friend." That degree of self-involvement, self-importance, and bad taste has now made its way to TV with "The Bronx" in which a bunch of old guys from (guess where?) the Bronx walk you through their neighborhood. There might have been some value here if it wasn't so narcissistic nor, quite frankly, so boring. To be fair I stopped after about 30 minutes.

Clearly the producers and actors put their hearts into this in bringing to life the old and the new. This is especially so in the way they covered many of the students, whose journeys parallel those of the older folks when they lived there. It helps to be of a certain age in viewing this and even more so if you hail from the Bronx. A thoughtful, entertaining and ultimately celebratory documentary. I particularly liked how at the end-credits they updated the status of many of the students who were the subjects of much of this film.