grantss Gary, Fran and their teenage son DeAndre live in the slums of West Baltimore. They used to have a normal suburban family life, until Gary and Fran started taking drugs. Now Gary and Fran are estranged and their existence is day-to-day, hand-to-mouth, doing anything to satisfy their addiction. DeAndre has a chance, through getting his head down and staying in school, of escaping the abject poverty his parents live in, but he has his own problems. He is lured into become a drug dealer, making his living on the corner.Created, written and produced by David Simon, who, at that time, had given us Homicide: Life On The Street and would later give us The Wire. The series is based on his non-fiction book "The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood". (The book was co-written with Ed Burns, who is also a writer on the show, and was a writer on The Wire). Incredibly raw and gritty, so much so that it is often painful to watch. The conditions people have to live in, the desperation and seemingly lack of escape options make for very emotional and harrowing viewing. The fact that Gary and his family were living a fairly idyllic lifestyle before being brought down by drug addiction makes viewing even more painful. As mentioned, it is quite painful to watch at times. Add to this the fact that it can be quite slow, so in some ways it is an ordeal, and though a very high-quality ordeal, you do sometimes wonder why you are willing to put yourself through it.It all comes together in the end though and the conclusion is very powerful.Having watched The Wire before this, even though The Corner was released in 2000 and The Wire in 2002-2008, you can see how The Corner is an evolutionary step in David Simon's creation of The Wire. In The Corner Simon concentrates on a few characters and how the drug trade in West Baltimore affects their lives. In The Wire, Simon takes roughly the same location and looks at the bigger picture, and the characters involved - police, drug kingpins, as well as the street-level drug dealers covered in The Corner.You can even trace certain plot devices and developments in The Wire back to The Corner. For example, Namond in The Wire is DeAndre in The Corner to a large extent (though their fortunes diverge, from a point).Plus, the cast of The Corner is jam-packed full of actors who appeared in The Wire. Makes for interesting, and sometimes jarring, viewing. Seeing Freamon, Daniels and Norman Wilson as dope fiends was a bit of a shock!

lilrico-09460 This movie is based in Baltimore Maryland as a predecessor to the wire focusing on a family life who both of the parents were once wealthy but they lost everything due to drugs and their life being attached to the corner as well as their son deandre he's surrounded by selling and eventually becomes a substance abuser himself but he also has to deal with the everyone around him on drugs as well as a baby in the way he feels as if his backs against the wall which prevents him from leaving the corner alone because he has to support his family his mother who fell victim to the drugs eventually learned how to cope with life again as she slowly worked on recovering and becoming clean again

alistair-5 Bleak, uncompromising and hard-hitting. The quality of the acting, scripting and direction pull together to create a contemporary urban drama revolving around the lives of drug addicts and dealers living in the slums of downtown Baltimore, a figurative cancer eating away at the American heartland.Based on the true life story of Francine Boyd (played here by the mesmerizing Khandi Alexander) from the book by Edward Burns & David Simon - subject matter experts on the Baltimore drug scene and writers for TV's "The Wire". As with real life, there aren't any easy answers or happy endings. With "The Corner" HBO raised the bar on the quality of television drama forever.

Ankhoryt You want to force politicians and lawmakers to watch this film. You want high school kids considering drugs to watch this film. And you want to watch this film yourself, over and over, for the sheer drama of the story and for the tremendous performances by each and every person in it.Equally poignant were the appearances by the people who weren't performers: at the end of the series, there's a brief meeting with the real individuals who were portrayed in the six episodes, along with a "five years later" update on what actually happened to other characters whose real-life counterparts didn't live long enough (or live free long enough) to participate in the on-camera reunion.Dutton's direction is brilliant, presenting the cold facts of a deadly situation with great compassion as well as narrative force. Although not explicitly political and never preachy, the film makes the unpopular point that medical treatment backed up with intensive rehab works and pouring money into fruitless attempts at law enforcement doesn't.This series is a great American tragedy and crime story combined, a fit companion to "The Godfather" and "Grapes of Wrath," combining the gritty crime story of the first with the deadly grind of verité poverty from the latter to produce an engrossing synecdoche of our culture at the end of the century.This isn't an "inner city" movie -- this is about all of us. What Dutton shows us in the Baltimore ghetto happens in rural towns in the heartland, too. One small mistake leads to another until, all too soon and too often inevitably, the chances of a happy ending become very, very slim. A universal plot, as timeless and as touching as Shakespeare's finest.