Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

techlord which is coincidently the B-Day of the fabulous Actor Jamie Foxx who portrayed him in this film. This is one of many reasons for the Controversy. Jamie portrayed not only Williams very well, but thousands of others who have been seduced into the "Way of the Gangsta".This film is too powerful for most comprehend. Especially those who have never had to struggle. It is true that Hollywood glamorizes gang behavior, but, thats its job. No matter how glamorous the evil looks, in the end there is always jail and death. Tookie Williams made a change in the real world and Jamie conveys that on the Big Screen. I honestly believe that now Tookie has been EXECUTED, its no longer just a film, its something greater.http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/13/williams.execution/

vincent-100 The topic of Stan Williams often incites heated and emotional debate. A movie about his life was therefore a perfect opportunity to inform both sides of the armchair debaters, showing why Tookie was put in prison and sketching the events leading to his self-claimed redemption. Tookie was a wretched man - he said so himself. The movie should have shown how wretched he was. It should have shown the violence he was exposed to when he was young, the murders he was convicted for, his violent behaviour in prison for many years before he had a change of heart. He also always claimed he was innocent of the crimes he was sentenced for, so there was an opportunity to film the murders with some doubt as to the perpetrator. It could really have built around the doubt, and played on the emotional conflict of carrying out the sentence or having mercy on a changed man. But the movie doesn't focus on the character change of Tookie. It never focuses on his violent nature, and the viewer is not taken on the journey of the evolving character. Instead, the film starts off with the nice Tookie Williams who has kind eyes and a nature that evokes sympathy. His former crimes are only eluded to, and he is depicted as an honest man seeking release from prison as a place he can't get used to and just doesn't belong. Jamie Foxx is a brilliant actor, but unfortunately does not portray the latent demon that was Tookie. Jamie is too nice-looking, and not nearly huge enough. If you are not familiar with the Tookie Williams story, this movie will seem to jump around a lot and will not make as much sense as it is supposed to. Those unfamiliar with the story will side immediately with Tookie and want him to be released from prison. As such, it is not an accurate portrayal, and it is not clear what the film was trying to create. The movie never really finds its rhythm and it is an unfortunate lost opportunity. The viewer should have a good idea of how bad Tookie was, and then be able to judge for himself the genuineness of the change, and only then start to question what Tookie's fate should have been. These questions did not need to be answered in the movie, but they should at least have been posed. Instead, the end result is a random and inelegant sympathetic sketch of Tookie's last days that ends on an imperfect cadence.

Doug Thorburn Although we can't be sure how much of the persona is real, Jamie Fox beautifully portrays Tookie Williams in this well-made film. Likewise, Lynn Whitfield plays the endearing journalist Barbara Becnel, who asks Tookie to provide information for her upcoming book on gang history. The roles, in the end, reverse, when Becnel realizes Tookie needs her help in delivering his message.The flaw in the movie, as in so many that portray addicts, is the failure to link convoluted thinking and misbehaviors to alcohol and other drug addiction. Tookie explains he helped start the Crips to "protect the neighborhood." Responding to Becnel's comment that it was a criminal enterprise from the start, Tookie replies that the cops weren't protecting anyone. "Either I was going to be a victim or a victimizer." However, he failed to note that he'd been doing drugs since at least age 13, when he sniffed glue, and didn't co-found the Crips until he was 18. And like most other hard-drug addicts, he was probably an early-stage alcoholic from the start.When Becnel asks, "How can you possibly justify shooting a man who looks just like you?" Williams responded, "At the core is an embedded sense of self-hate…you start to believe those…stereotypes…depicting that the majority of blacks are buffoons or functioning illiterates, promiscuous, violent, welfare recipients and criminals…You lash out at those individuals that fit those stereotypes…trying to obliterate those negative images." However, Tookie neglected to mention the alcohol and other drugs consumed in addictive quantities by most of those having such belief systems, including him in his prior life. Such drugs cause distortions of perception and memory in susceptible individuals, of which he is one. Nor did the movie forge the link between his sobriety and change of heart, which is crucial to understanding the man.He was too out-of-control for his mother, who took him to his father—whom he had never met—and who promptly abandoned him. While now eloquent and likable, he didn't remark on when he first used drugs—which may have been a period leading to his out-of-control behaviors.Becnel put her history aside when Tookie told her, "I don't want to leave my legacy here as simply being the co-founder of the Crips, if I can keep a kid from coming to this place…" He tells her he wants to right his wrongs by writing children's books and shooting not people, but videos, in which he would apologize for his part in creating the Crips. "I deeply regret the legacy that it left because it left a legacy of genocide: black on black genocide." While making it clear that the course of violence must be reversed, he again ignores the role of alcoholism and other-drug addiction in creating the mindset that leads to the lion's share of abuse, including the ultimate crimes.At one point, the film points out he stopped using when he decided to seek redemption. The link is blurred, but at least it's there. He stopped using, which allowed him to seek redemption; redemption is impossible while still using, because the active addict thinks he's God.What the movie lacks in forging the link between addiction and misbehaviors, it makes up for in good acting and speeches of atonement. "We do good because it makes us feel alive. The first half of my life I was dead…but now the second half I get a chance to live and do something about it. And if I have to die in order to show the meaning—the true meaning of it—then so let it be." And, he points out the importance of self-responsibility in speeches to children: "This place (prison) does not make you a man. The moment you begin to make excuses for yourselves, that's the moment you get on to a pathway leading straight to here." And, "My violent gang past is unworthy of imitation or praise." He admits his greatest mistake ever was to co-found the Crips, while explaining that life is all about choices and that to assume there wasn't a choice is "just an excuse." However, he fails to point out that he never would have engaged in repetitive and horrific criminal behaviors if he hadn't inherited addiction, a common failure among addicts who all-too-often don't understand their own disease.Nonetheless, it's a good movie about redemption. My understanding of alcoholism--on which I write extensively--has turned me into a strong believer in the idea of allowing addicts to do what they can to right their sometimes heinous wrongs, if they are willing. The movie portrays him as having made a very decent attempt, even if the wrong can never be fully righted.

terrileggins I watched the movie and think like what every one else thinks. Once your locked up and facing a long sentence of course your going to change or find god. So, what ever happened to tookie because at the end of movie it doesn't say. I know that he was still awaiting death role but did he die or what? Also, does anyone know what the real Stan Willams looked like? Did he have kids before going too prison? People can change so, you cant say that he was full of it when he started writing children's books. I too don't believe in the death pentaitly. I also think that he was serous about changing. And that is all i have to say. If anyone can answer these questions please do so because i'm curious.