The film mixes hidden-camera footage shot by Pras with "coverage" in the form of a wider angle footage shot from a roaming or parked van nearby, along with graphics citing alarming statistics and supported by interviews with in-the-belly experts (with reformed addicts working at various shelters and detox centers, homeless rights advocates, etc.). All this is inter-cut with additional footage apparently shot in a parking garage near Skid Row where Pras can speak freely to the camera, talking about his experiences.

The images and statistics are appropriately shocking. The few blocks encompassing Skid Row have the highest suicide and infant mortality rate of anywhere in the United States. Blacks, who make up 9% of L.A. County's population, are fully 41% of Skid Row's racial make-up. Its homeless population is more than twice that of New York City while Beverly Hills, with the world's largest concentration of millionaires and billionaires, is just eight miles away. When it rains rats roam the streets like buffalo on the prairie. Right there on the sidewalk in the light of day people are plainly seen beating each other up, urinating, shooting heroin, smoking crack, you name it. As someone points out, where else are they going to do it?

Some of the homeless insist that they're there by choice; one former drug dealer even extols "the benefits," such as what he argues is an obscenely low cost of living. Needless to say, this argument doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The film hints that, on top of a million other indignities, the homeless are probably gouged at local convenience stores for living necessities. Perhaps most disturbing is a discussion of "containment," setting aside the few blocks encompassing Skid Row to pretty much let the homeless do their drugs and murder and rape one another, rather like the turning of Manhattan into a maximum security prison in Escape from New York.

Pras' naïve ideas about surviving on the street add to the film's appeal; he turns out to be pretty universally relatable for a Grammy-winning hip hopper. He blows his nine bucks within a few hours. He doesn't like the food at the local mission, so he buys an overpriced lunch ("don't put bacon on that, please") at a nearby hotel. Early on, he finds some success panhandling with demeaning shtick worthy of Mantan Moreland, but refuses one woman's offer of free food: "I can't eat that....I'm a vegetarian!"

After nine days, however, Pras is so hungry and so demeaned he admits to no longer caring about anybody or anything; he just wants to eat. It's a shocking thing to witness, the dehumanization of recognizable, everyday people into nearly unrecognizable dregs living and treated like animals. As Pras says near the end, even dogs are treated better than this. It's no wonder so many escape into drugs and alcohol. The crack and heroin in short order turn the average 25-year-old into a decrepit 60. In one scene Pras watches a sensible-sounding, articulate man casually shoot heroin in a filthy sidewalk tent. The harsh reality of watching this man destroy himself makes Pras (and the audience) want to vomit.

Some reviews have criticized Pras's sabbatical among the homeless as celebrity unctuousness, calling him a crybaby because the mission won't let him place a long-distance call to his agent, or because he feels naked without his Blackberry, but doesn't everybody get crabby when their Internet goes down for a few hours, or they lose their cellphone, or the line at the local Starbucks is just a little too long for their liking? His are honest reactions, and he knows he's lucky; after nine days he gets to return to his envied lifestyle. When he talks to the homeless he asks the same, sometimes inane questions we'd probably ask in the same situation, but he also allows himself to be humiliated on camera, at one point taking a shit on the sidewalk like every other homeless person.

A subplot of the picture also reveals the directors' - Ross Clarke, Niva Dorell, and Marshall Tyler - willingness to show their own imperfections and occasional bad decisions. Many of the homeless on Skid Row resent having their rock-bottom lives exposed for the world to see, and over the course of nine days the crew is marked by some of its residents. Pras understandably loses his cool when the film crew, following Pras's movements in a van loaded with hidden cameras, becomes overly-confident and careless. When police bust a drug deal of one sort or another, the crew stupidly instructs Pras to walk up and ask the officers what's going on, something a real homeless person wouldn't do in a million years. The police assume he called the tip in, while the homeless watching from a distance begin to suspect he's an undercover cop. It's lucky Pras and his crew made it out alive.

Video & Audio

Skid Row isn't being released until March, which presumably is why we weren't sent final product. The DVD we did get is full frame, reflecting the shot-on-video nature of the documentary, which looks okay for what it is. The audio dropped in-and-out for several minutes around the 13-minute mark, but otherwise the Dolby Stereo mix is fine considering the rough audio recording conditions. (Some dialogue is thankfully supported by subtitles.)

Extra Features

The only supplement is reported to be sampling of deleted scenes, but since they weren't included on this screener, it's impossible for this reviewer to report on them.

Parting Thoughts

As alluded to in the film, this documentary is of the sort that shoves a mirror into the face of its audience, forcing it to confront and challenge one's own prejudices and preconceived notions about a subject that they, by and large, tune out. Skid Row may be the best film of its kind since the Oscar-nominated Streetwise (1984), about homeless teens in Seattle. It pulls no punches and is sensible enough to acknowledge and examine the limitations of its own set-up. It's the kind of film every American needs to see. Highly Recommended.

* When I lived in Los Angeles, a favorite haunt was the Little Tokyo area, whose southern border runs smack up against Skid Row. (The Little Tokyo Shopping Center building is visible in the background of several shots.) My Japanese wife and I occasionally would have to come to the rescue of naïve tourists from comparatively crime- and drug-free Japan, who like wide-eyed deer during hunting season would with their expensive digi-cameras and Hermes bags innocently wander into this American Jigoku.

Film historian Stuart Galbraith IV's latest books, Japanese Cinema and The Toho Studios Story, are now available for pre-order.