Search - Hell's Kitchen: A New York Neighborhood on DVD

Surprisingly Boring

Susan K. Schoonover | Boulder, CO | 05/31/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I'm a documentary fan, love New York City and enjoy quirky real life characters so I was eager to see this film. Unfortunately it somehow manages to be totally unengaging despite what would seem to be a fascinating subject. The filmmaker tells us early on that 40% of the people in the gritty (but gentrifying) "Hell's Kitchen" area of Manhattan make their living in an artistic pursuit and to that end a musician, an actor, a milliner (hat maker) casting director, independent film maker, playwright and some other creative types living and/or working in the neighborhood are interviewed. These people are all talkative enough and in fact at times seem a little overly fond of the sound of their own voices but the filmmaker doesn't seem to be able to draw anything especially interesting or profound from them. And then at the end of this short (82 minutes) movie we get an update on how life has been treating these folks and depressingly enough things have gotten worse for almost all of them. The rest of the movie is mostly just disjointed shots of the neighborhood accompanied by some very unpleasant sounding music and the whole look of the movie screams "student film". I'm sure a good documentary could be made on the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood but this isn't it."