The best thing about this relentlessly downbeat slice of Sixties realism is Leonardo DiCaprio's on-the-nail performance as wayward New York basketball-loving teenager Jim Carroll. Leo inherited it from River Phoenix and it gave his serious acting reputation a huge boost. We've seen the grungy story far too often before: the road to ruin via tearaways at Catholic school, drugs, crime, prostitution. This movie, based on Carroll's autobiographical novel, gives them all a bad name. The acting saves a moralistic, rather unpleasant and depressing film, though admittedly there are some splendidly written and handled sequences. Mark Wahlberg and James Madio are terrific too, as Leo's pals, and Lorraine (Sopranos) Bracco does a stalwart turn as his mom. But is everything all right just because you write a diary about it?


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