A Masterpiece!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

I watched this on Netflix streaming movies, mainly because I am a Ricci fan, I like her roles in all her movies. I found it a bit better than the low IMDb rating might suggest. Filmed in New South Wales, Australia.Christina Ricci, early 30s, is American Dino Chalmers. She traveled to Australia for a guy and she is working as a drama teacher at the local school mostly populated with students with indigenous parents. A yearly celebration is coming up and the school usually puts on an event, and it seems to always have been a Rugby match. Instead Chalmers proposes that the students put on a play instead. Against the odds that idea is accepted. So she decides they will put on a performance of Hamlet. The key student is teenage actor Hunter Page-Lochard as Liam. He is a good kid but his father is in prison and his older brother seems intent on following their dad into a life of violence. But Liam does not want to follow his dad's footsteps. He gets the title role as Hamlet.I really like this small movie, much of it seems realistic although being an American I don't really know. At one point near the end the teacher says "None of us choose to be born but we can choose to live." And that is really what the story is about, and mainly Liam deciding to make something of himself.SPOILERS: The dad in prison tells the older son who he found to be responsible for his incarceration. The older son decides to ambush him and kill him, but the 6-yr-old daughter witnesses it. Liam had gone along reluctantly as the getaway driver. Soon the cops were after all of them. The older brother decides to flee, their car wrecks, the brother tries to run through a field, when he turns to shoot the cops shoot and kill him. Hamlet is successfully performed and at the end the cops escort Liam away, but we have to believe that he will only suffer some sort of probation and be allowed to get back to developing a life with good choices.

This film tells the story of two aboriginal brothers in Australia, whose lives diverges and disintegrates because of their different goals and values in life."Around the Block" tells a touching story of two underprivileged teenagers in a deprived neighborhood. They got involved in a turmoil that they do not need to be in, and it is up to the drama teacher to do something to help them - by engaging one of the two teenagers to act in a school play. It is an engaging and touching story, especially because it makes you yearn for an ending which is different compared to the one shown. I think the acting by the two teenagers are good, and Christina Ricci made the right choice to star in this gem. She needs to be in good films after a string of not so good ones!

This is an infuriatingly hackneyed entry in the idealistic-teacher-saves-disadvantaged-students sub-genre. It desperately wants to be hip and socially relevant, but is relentlessly and embarrassingly dull. It's a classic example of what happens when film funding bodies like Screen Australia become preoccupied with ticking all the politically correct boxes. Aboriginal content and cast. Tick. Female writer and director. Double tick. Lead character tailored for an American star (however awkwardly). Tick. Story geared to a younger demographic. Tick. But none of these elements ever comes together, and the result is a lame mish-mash that attempts to sell us Aboriginal students energised by Shakespeare, Christina Ricci battling racism and exploring her sexuality, and a morally confused criminal sub-plot that weirdly shifts the focus from the central characters. To make matters worse, the depiction of inner-Sydney's Redfern - which is given an LA ghetto makeover (complete with burnt-out cars and fires in the streets) - is dishonest and laughable to anyone who actually knows it.

I'll admit I downloaded this based on the fact that Christina Ricci was the lead in it. To my surprise, it was the acting of the supporting cast that really led the way here. It is a very different character for Ricci, who has been sort of typecast as an oddball since her early Addams Family days. As a viewer, you are immediately taken in by the boy Liam who has secured the role of Hamlet in the school play. If you are a Shakespeare buff like I am, you will love the Hamlet plot lines and dynamics running throughout the film. You can see hints of that from the trailer but I didn't know just how central to the story Hamlet would be until I saw it for myself. It's a modern twist on an age-old tale, and with that, Around The Block is able to bring something new to the table.