The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This is a documentary that wants to cause social change. It presents one side of a story as powerfully and clearly as possible. Director Eugene Jarecki would argue that this does not lessen the quality of the film as we have heard the other side of the story all of our lives in a multitude of forms and it has fully permeated the way we think about the issue.The House I Live In is about the war on drugs. The statement 'war on drugs' first came into popular consciousness when Richard Nixon called it America's number one priority. It is a war that was continued by every American president after Nixon, and adopted in various forms throughout the world: due to American political pressure, a reactionary media and international treaties. War on drugs refers to the government's aggressively punitive policy against drug use.This documentary does not make the argument that drug use should be encouraged. Rather, it points out that more damage is done by our societies' approach to drugs than the drug use itself. We treat drug use as a criminal act, rather than a health issue. We then place convictions on people so they cannot get good jobs, isolate non-violent offenders away from their families, and push the drug business into the realm of gangs, which creates incredible levels of violence. Further it shows how all this has been driven by the political popularity the issue generates rather than an evidence-based drive to reduce harm.David Simon, the director of the TV show the Wire, appears in the documentary and points out it would be one thing if we caused all this social damage and drug use actually went down, but there has been no correlation between the escalation of the war on drugs and a decrease in drug use. Moreover, it costs governments a fortune in prison costs ($100,000 a year in New Zealand), social welfare costs, court costs, and law enforcement costs.The other more sinister side to the story is that the war on drugs is that throughout history it has mainly been a disguise for the war against ethnic minorities: Chinese, Mexicans and African Americans. The documentary points out that more African Americans are currently in prison on drug charges than were ever enslaved. This is due to a culmination of lack of opportunities, poverty and racial profiling against African Americans.Another issue that the documentary explores is the irrational sentencing regime in America for drug related offences. It shows that the penalties do not necessarily reflect the harm caused but mass hysteria of public misconception of drugs. This is exemplified in the mandatory minimum sentence regime and the 100 to 1 ratio of penalties against crack cocaine compared to powder cocaine. The viewers may be surprised to find out that the only difference between crack and powder cocaine is some baking soda and water. Considering the propaganda on the evils of crack cocaine, it was a shocking revelation for me.America has been forced to rethink this model due to the huge fiscal pressures that the war on drugs places on it. It is no surprise that it is financial rather than social cost that will probably lead to change in this area: I guess voters do not mind having a huge percentage of poor people locked away with little chance of integration due to lengthy isolation from society and convictions hanging over their heads.One criticism of this documentary could be that it does not show an alternative or a way forward. In response, the resistance to change in this area is so great that dialogue cannot really occur until people realise fully how futile and cruel the current system is.This review comes from: amateurreviewspace.blogspot.com

Wise men know that they don't know everything. That is the genius of the US Constitution... it can change. Our society changes. Sometimes, clear and concise argument can make flip-floppers of any of us. "The house I live in" was just such a film to me. In one segment of a solving the problem sequence, Gabor Maté MD, came out of the dark like an archangel from a stormy sky and slew my concepts of education and happiness.How he changed me, was as profound as Mark Twain's War Prayer where he brings forth the idea of a spoken prayer and a silent prayer. God hears both and from his grave Twain's writings elevate my humanity. I considered the education system as the last hope for a dysfunctional nuclear family bereft with poverty, low wage and poor nutrition. I now agree with Maté (BTW é is: alt0233) that without out a good family life, without the stressors that make you watch the horizon for wolves, you can't learn. And while the education system says it can control the home life, all it's slogans, money and pedagogy... it is doomed to failure. The Prison Industrial complex is made clear as Richard Mitchell makes clear the Graves of Acadamie. The drug war funds lots of retirements and has to be stopped because the metrics say so and we say so. It's a good path if you want a lot of your injured soldiers to find work when they come back, brainwashed in the pseudosuccess of authoritarianism never reading 2 time medal of honor winner Smedley Butler. These systems of control are very fragile and close to falling... support this film, learn from this film and push back. You'll be amazed at the happiness right around the corner, IMHO. Thank you so much, to all who took part in making this film. Lawson di Ransom Canyon 2013

The House I Live In takes the complex issue of the failed war on drugs and breaks it down to a level that is both digestible and striking nonetheless. The film provides substantial historical evidence to make a powerful argument against the American war on drugs. The House I Live In exposes the many flaws of current anti-drug policies and strategies from a multitude of perspectives, drawing from historians and academics to front- of-the-line law enforcement and correctional officers alike. The film brilliantly ties these perspectives in a way that can effectively inspire viewers from all backgrounds to take a stand in confronting this largely unrecognized national issue.The film provides an impressively broad set of data and evidence that cohesively screams one message—the war on drugs is a failure to the American public. As the first film focused solely on the subject, The House I Live In is undoubtedly one of the decade's most important films.

What's really fueling this law and order hysteria and the draconian prison sentences for relatively minor, innocuous and even non-existent "crimes" is the extraordinarily profitable Prison for Profit system. What's interesting and extremely frightening is most Americans are oblivious to it. Combine this with a large number of the public being largely uneducated and on a continual sadistic hunt for scapegoats, those who profiteer on the modern day slave trade have a willing public as unwitting accomplices.It's interesting the director, Eugene Jarecki, also did "Why We Fight", one of the best documentaries to expose the crimes being committed by the blood money Military Industrial Complex. The public is also largely oblivious to that evil profiteering monster and also happily supports it to the point it thinks murdering and dying for it is a good thing. Jarecki makes some of the most important and enlightening documentaries of today. It's an alarming shame and tragedy that the predominately ignorant and not very mentally healthy general public aren't watching them, let alone able to comprehend how it hurts everyone except the bank accounts of sociopathic "business" men and women.Perhaps the common denominator is the same fuel that's driving half of the present day voters in the Presidential election: hatred and the eternal search for scapegoats. It would make an excellent documentary to tie these core driving forces together, a task I think Mr. Jarecki is capable of doing well. It probably won't make much of an impact beyond preaching to the choir but then again none of his other fine offerings have fared much better and those are still greatly appreciated by thoughtful and humane audiences.