Overview: 'The Interrupters' follows three individuals who with bravado, humility, and even humor, work to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed. From acclaimed director Steve James and bestselling author Alex Kotlowitz, this is an intimate journey into the stubborn persistence of violence in our cities.

DVD Verdict: Oh my! This is a truly engrossing, yet sadly heartbreaking documentary on the youth violence culture endemic to the Greater Chicago, IL area. Frontline does not pull any punches on the breadth and depth of their coverage. They show the despair, violence, and utter hopelessness of the situation while focusing on those special individuals trying to turn their communities around.

This is not an "academic" travel into urban sociology or politics. This is a caption of how an entire community adopts the self-destructive values and how some very strong people are fighting to take back their communities.

Director Steve James, whose classic 'Hoop Dreams' captured the difficulty of teenage hoopsters with startling intimacy and power, has delivered yet another haunting portrait of life in urban America, and even though there were many great documentaries in 2011, I think 'The Interrupters' was one 2011's best documentaries. [EP] This is a Full Screen Presentation (1.31) enhanced for 16x9 TVs.