Actual HBO Documentary from THE FIGHTER - High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell
If you haven't seen David O' Russell's The Fighter yet you have to watch it! This is a great film. I recently saw it for a second time and enjoyed it just as much as the first time I saw it. Throughout the movie Christian Bale's character Dickie Eklund was filming a documentary for HBO called High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell, this doc plays a very significant role in the film's story. As you know the film is based on a true story, so this documentary actually exists.
Dickie’s part in the film is equally as interesting and powerful as Micky’s story. This is a guy who famously fought the legendary boxer “Sugar” Ray Leonard and knocked him down, but he ended up blowing his big shot, and flushed his boxing career down the toilet when he got hooked on smoking crack. We are shown the sad and depressing life that he leads, while an HBO documentary crew follows him around documenting his life. He eventually ends up in jail while trying to get some cash to help his brother train. While he’s in jail, Dickie goes through the process of pulling himself out of this hell he’s been living. This has an incredibly rewarding payoff.
Here is the trailer for the documentary, and you can watch the full doc over at SnagFilms.
Here’s the description of High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell.
In blue-collar Lowell, Massachusetts, where disappearing industry has produced high unemployment, some residents have turned to crack for relief – only to see their dreams of a better life go up in smoke. High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell is a harrowing documentary chronicling 18 months in the lives of three crackhouse friends whose addiction has let them to crime and despair.
Brenda, Dicki and Boo-Boo have grown up in and around Lowell. Brenda was an aspiring actress; now she resorts to prostituion to pay for her crack addiction. “I love it more than anything. More than life itself. Yet I hate it worse than anything”, says Brenda. Dicki was the “Pride of Lowell” a boxer who once fought Sugar Ray Leonard. He commits robberies to support his habit. Boo-Boo has spent the last twenty years smoking crack, shoplifting, and doing whatever he has to do to stay alive.
To make the film, documentarians Jon Alpert and Mary Ann DeLeo teamed up with Lowell resident and former drug addict Rich Farrell, who was able to obtain remarkable access to the town’s drug subculture. In the eighteenth months it took to complete this documentary, the camera follows Brenda, Dicki and Boo-Boo in and out of crack houses, rehab centers and jails. Their sad struggle mirrors the despair of their home town. There are many ‘Lowells’ in America – where citizens are abandoned to drugs and the empty factories echo their despair.