The Boys of Baraka is a documentary about at-risk inner-city preteens from Baltimore who get chosen to attend a special school in Africa to improve their education. The film evinces a sobering reality while maintaining a hopeful and uplifting undertone. It had me on the verge of tears several times (although did not ever push me over the edge). The music is extremely well-done and the editing wasn't bad. The directors chose great characters to follow: each one chose a different path at the end of the film, which made for a feeling that the scenario was fully explored.Frankly, some of the camerawork sucked. A lot of key, important scenes were not filmed and the events were only revealed in conversation or interviews after the fact. This normally wouldn't be a complaint except that I've seen superior documentaries get this kind of information on film and show us. I didn't like how some of the characters received subtitles, and only some of the time. I could easily understand the subtitled parts, so it almost seemed kind of denigrating to treat their speech as another language. Also, there are bunch of boring and unrelated parts. That sucks. It's interesting and I recommend it if you are interested in it.
IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0444608/