The Basketball Diaries by Stephen Farber The Basketball Diaries, the film version of Jim Carroll's autobiographical book about his descent from jock to junkie, means to illuminate the soul of a teenager; it even includes poetic excerpts from his diaries in extensive voice-over narration. Leonardo DiCaprio certainly has the talent to convey the heart and mind of a budding artist. But the script and direction let him down. At the very beginning, when Jim and his pals swagger on and off the basketball court, the film has welcome energy and humor. Once Jim begins his deterioration, the movie disintegrates, too. Director Scott Kalvert's visualizations of a druggie's hallucinations--like a shot of Jim running through a field of pink flowers--are banal, and Jim's later degradations have a formulaic feel to them. How many ways can a director freshen scenes of junkies strung out, shooting up, wallowing in vomit and grime? Perhaps that's the reason there's never been a truly interesting drug movie. From The Panic in Needle Park to Rush, every movie about the squalor of the addict's world follows the same arc. No matter how powerful the acting, there's little insight to be gained from another walk down these mean streets. DiCaprio does his best to freshen these monotonous scenes. When he comes to his mother's door, just the way he says "Hi"--in a dead tone that mixes innocence and utter depravity--lets you know that you're watching an actor of striking originality. But the movie never gets inside Jim's head. At the very end, when it tries to suggest that his artistic sensibility enables him to kick his habit, it's facile and unconvincing, because it hasn't really dramatized the power of his imagination. This film about adolescence dilutes its single-minded seediness with a gob of gooey sentimentality--a particularly unappetizing mixture. What did you think of this movie? Sound off in the Movie Forum.

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