Manic (2001)

Teen Teen Teen! Angst Angst Angst! Joseph Gordon-Levitt has anger management problems. He has to go to lock down in the child psych unit after nearly killing another lad with a baseball bat. I appreciated the movie's penchant for showing aspects of violence without being gratuitous, gory or glorifying the acts. The relatively gritty, lo-fi look of the film suited the atmosphere, and while the acting was sometimes a bit over the top it was mostly pretty spot on (honestly it made me want to be back in a psych ward, looked after by staff & obliged to interact with my fellow crazies). I've never been in a juvenile ward before but the mixture of hard-core lock-down & rowdy kids doing whatever the hell they want seemed fairly unlikely. Even so, all in all I found this to be an effective & well executed piece. 4 out of 5 Netflix Stars!