Watch Stevie For Free

Waste of Money.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Like in most of my reviews, I don't get too heavily invested in talking "plot". I know that sounds counter intuitive, but everybody gives you the plot, it's all over the Internet, it's all the trailers, the previews, the talk shows.... everywhere. So the plot is not too hard to find. What I do is get a little bit more into the technical aspects of the film and I think that's because I tend to watch films a bit more analytically than other people. This is unfortunate for me because while other people are enjoying a usually good movie, I'm sitting there thinking that couldn't be done because of this, or that's not realistic because of that, etc. Just watch "Speed", it's an homage to cinematic frustration for me, along with many others. Anyway this movie briefly is obviously about a 20-something (Director Steve James who plays himself, as does everyone else) who, at the urging others, befriends a young child Stevie (Steven Fielding - the identical first names was painful for me for some reason) in a "big brother" type of relationship, with honestly the best intentions in mind. Several years later the James, now also a film maker, returns to glean what he can about what ever happened to little Stevie from years ago, only to find out he's lived a life of crime; everything from innocuous to petty to questionable to downright disturbing. The viewer, though it is not verbalized, is left to wonder whether James feels as though his imprint on this young life did in some manner negatively affect it. It couldn't have. James and his wife are obviously wonderful people. Regardless, It's no secret that about halfway through the movie Stevie, the one time little brother, gets arrested for sexually assaulting his female little cousin. Now normally I don't get into this in this forum, but it seems appropriate here. Anyway, I normally tend to be a bit more liberal in cases such as this, however I simply don't get the outcry for leniency and compassion for this offender with myriad, wide ranging crimes spanning a lifetime despite a loving fiancé and supportive family (despite issues that were Dmittedly ghastly when he was a baby involving parenting-by-absentia etc. He admitted what he did, of course recanted but did so after a good amount of time had passed. After he subsequently told James that he wasn't going to prison, nor would he ever register as a sex offender (the implication being that he would kill himself before either of these two whatever occur), James had to fight valiantly to hold this thing together - and it was going down quickly. I don't mean in terms of quality of the movie, i just mean in the "tough-guy" rhetoric of the real-life players. Look, these guys are probably great fellows (one even boasts to be the head of the Aryan Brotherhood. Yup, the HEAD and everything! Now that can't be all bad, can it?) As I was saying, as far as career criminal sexually deviant incestuous child molesters and heads of Aryan Brotherhoods go, these guys are probably good neighbors. But I'm not in to guys who brag about striking women (particularly family members), I don't think the phrase "That's what she said" it's funny anymore, besides I bet she never said it to him anyway. These guys are big talkers and I'm just not interested in big talkers. They bore me. Like my dad says, one of his best ever, they never seem to have anything interesting to say, and they're always the loudest ones in the room. It's the same thing over and over and over again that everyone pretends to laugh at like it's the first time they heard it - that's what you're watching when you watch this. It's painful. Like I said, it's well-made I have no problems or issues there . It's the subject matter, it's the content, it's the irascible and obnoxiousness of the characters. Stevie gets his in the end and James makes a difficult to watch film if, like me, you're not into big talkers. But on rainy Sunday afternoon when your team has a bye, it's probably worth a watch, albeit 30 minutes too long. That's the most endorsements I can give this one.

In 1981 the director of this documentary, Steve James, volunteered with the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization to become a big brother to eleven year old Stevie Fielding. The Big Brothers Big Sisters program matches adult volunteers to serve as mentors for children ages six through eighteen. The children in the program are judged to be in need of support from a stable adult. Stevie Fielding clearly satisfies that criterion. Born out of wedlock, he never knew his father and his mother did not want him. His mother beat him and he made the rounds of foster homes where he was beaten and raped. In 1985 James left Stevie and the rural southern Illinois area where he lived and went to Chicago. In 1994 James returned to check in on Stevie and that is where this documentary begins, with Stevie now 23 years old. It is not surprising that Stevie has some serious emotional problems and is not doing all that well, having racked up multiple arrests in the intervening years. He does have some support from a stepsister and from a girlfriend. He has been accused of having molested an eight year old girl while babysitting her, resulting in court proceedings. Stevie's molestation case moving through the courts casts a cloud that hangs over the entire documentary until the final resolution.Lots of questions came up for me. How should a person like Stevie be understood and treated? Was he doomed by his past, or could there have been a different path for him? Would things have been different if Steve James had not left? Was Stevie's limited emotional and intellectual range due mainly to his background, or was it genetically encoded? How was it that these people granted James such intimate access to there lives?One of the interesting things about the movie is trying to figure out how Stevie sees the world. Nowhere is it mentioned that he has a classifiable psychiatric condition, such as Down Syndrome or schizophrenia, but he clearly has intellectual and emotional challenges. Stevie seems to have the maturity of a child. Although Stevie did not admit to any wrongdoing, I wonder if in fact he knew that he had done something seriously wrong by molesting the girl. I could not view Stevie as a pedophile in the sense that he necessarily had a compulsion to have sex with children. It's almost like his transgression just happened, maybe due to his childlike nature. But what should be done with a person like Stevie? Is jail really the answer? He refused a plea bargain that would have required him to seek psychiatric help. I doubt that Stevie will come out of jail (if indeed he survives the experience) with any chance of having a satisfying life, either for himself or those around him, not to mention his likely recidivism.A lot of the themes that surface in this documentary reminded me of those in Steinbeck's novella "Of Mice and Men," which deals with the close relationship between a ordinary man and a man with the mental development of a child. Themes addressed are: societal and personal obligations, loneliness, justice, understanding others.As this movie ground on to its sad end I found it to be one of the most depressing movies I have seen. Every fifteen minutes or so it became so painful to watch that I was tempted to give up on it, but I saw it through to the end.

I have not seen this film from the very beginning but caught it pretty near the top. My first gut reaction is that Stevie is a manipulative opportunist with serious problems. The film was very long, editing about forty minutes would have been prudent. I found it difficult to even feel empathy for Stevie but truly warmed to his sister and brother-in-law. One of the highlights of this film was the interview with his two buddies from the "brotherhood." All that was missing were the white sheets. All I could think of was "I hope these people don't vote." If Stevie were someone you could even feel sorry for, like Tanya, it I would give this film a higher ranking. The subject matter was interesting, it provoked emotions in me, and I guess I may be a little judgmental. My bad. Still hope they don't vote.

I enjoyed this documentary.I enjoyed looking at people in a whole different world, they remind me of some of my trailer park relatives, the way they talk, dress, sit on the couch or porch and get liquored up, the lack of education, how lonely a lot of these people are, particularly if your bouncing foster homes as a kid.My favorite part was when Stevie was baptized, I wonder if it really got through to him, if anything can really get through to him.I'm sure he is getting what he deserves, and this for me was just a weird video, something so random off the shelf at blockbuster that you'd never think of watching and being fascinated by the random weirdness of the people.