Excellent, smart action film.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

All i can say is it was child porn and by todays standards and laws anybody would be arrested who owned this piece of drek

Again this is one of those movies that one either loves or literally hates it cause of the subject. The acting was pretty good, seen better tho.. The set is AMAZING !!! Totaly have that vibe of those times, not that i would know how it really was lol .. but it has that thing, just has. Also in many ways it shows how prostitution ,or as today they love to call it, escorting or sex work ... was so much different, it was more human ,more down to earth , not slutty ,whoresih ,glamour like it is today. Simply it had CLASS,as the borthels as the prostitutes. As far as Brooke goes aka Violet, she was amazing, prolly her best movie ever and thats so strange consideting it was done so so long ago, but the way she acted ,her speach, facial expressions, and how she didnt seem botered at all doing and acting a kid prostitute ,is someting to be admired about for sure. As a matter a fact i bet that if this was remade 10 times with nowadays 12yo actors, non would be able to do such a great job as Brooke did! Not to say that theres no way a movie like this would be ever made in this day and age sadly , and specially not with a real 12yo playing a 12yo whore. And of course , her beauty ,cuteness ,adds to it as well, shes with out a doubt one of the prettiest child actors EVER ,if not THE. Of course, there will be people that will play the Virgin Mary here and act like they wanna puke or something , being disgusted by a movie like this and the fact that a 12yo plays a whore, and there are nude scenes of her as well. Well, if a 20yo would play a 12yo that would look funny as hell ,nor it would be able to bring the reality of it. Secondly , i dont understand whats the big deal about seing a naked 12yo?? I mean like , you guys dont have kids? You never seen them naked? You dont know that there are actually nudist families where everyone is naked including the kids and they go out and see 1000 of others and are being seen? I just dont get all the freaking out about it ... besides, i challenge everyone with those morals that has a 12yo dau or son , to check their Instagram acc ..just dont get schocked. At the end of the day , on Instagram today , you can find hundreds of young girl models even younger then 10!!! that model , some 12-13yo ,well... almost nude ,some in very very provocative clothing and poses, all done by managing companies with the amen of the parents of course, they have 10s and 100s of thousands of followers, some of the cooments are hey sexy , hey hottie , no one seemz to be bothered by that tho? They all making big $ of it. Some people even leave comments that would be like, well.. maybe you should wait with those kind of pictures, and then they get bashed by that 13yo saying to those adult persons that they are too convservative lol .. So please stop being hypocrites , this was just a movie, yes she was naked yes she played a whore ,key word ,played , yes she was exploited in those times in general , but it was just her! but these models im talking about are REAL ,and there are thousands of them ,yet no one says anything about that?? Maybe cause the same ppl that bash on this movie are too oldish now and they know even have a clue what kind of stuff is out there on social media ,because they dont use that , and when you have a 13yo telling you that you are too conservative ,you must really think twice. Specially if you are from the States, cause you guys freak too much about stuff like this,yet you are all about diversity and acceptance.

This drama has its potential, but somehow it failed me. There's no actual plot or whatsoever, you'll know how the movie ends just by watching the first 10-15 minutes. The characters did an amazing job(actually), but the directing is just so bad it's bothering. You feel like you watch a stage opera, not a movie. It feels like they're trying to remember the lines and all. Except for Brooke, there are no other character worth mentioning. I won't talk about part that make this movie a controversial one, I just want to state that it could be better. Definitely an experience if you had been into this genre. Must have, but no really replay value. 6/10

Of course, this film is controversial, but it is mostly, if not completely, factual. It's the DEEP SOUTH, people. That's classic New Orleans. Catholic whores, whipping, swamps, children in the whorehouses, racism, the accent, the voodoo, the attitude, the sexuality. It's all part of the Deep South in the 20th Century. The only things missing are the crawdads and Mardi Gras. And I can understand the bad reviews, but those of you who do not think this is an excellent film do not understand the era nor the neck of the woods.What I liked about this film is the actuality. There are still actual whores who are 12 or younger. They are in the underbelly of the city, banned from the French Quarter. Of course, the whores portrayed were high-class. They were those one would find on Bourbon Street, although Bourbon's whores are much lower than that now. When Storyville was still running, the Red Light District would promote each slut it had. Even Madame Nell knows to auction off a preteen's virginity is illegal, but it still happened. I'm glad this film was made. Of course, American directors don't have the guts to display this kind of truth. I understand it may not have been necessary to show Shields nude, but if anyone has read the trivia, it states a large number of young girls turned the role down. Her parents obviously knew what was going to happen and still allowed her to participate. It was a role which not every preteen could portray. Shields was extremely mature and played her part very well. I wouldn't say it's pedophilia. There are some who may find pleasure in a twelve- year-old's lady parts, but Bellocq loved her for her innocence. He even asks her to not speak as a whore. It's real. It's what actually happened. It's not what would have happened today, but it is truthful. It was a different time in a different place. For instance, Edgar Allan Poe, one of the greatest American writers in history, married his own cousin. This may be strange today, but back then, it may, repeat may, have been common. In Ancient Egypt, pharaohs married their own sisters before their twentieth birthdays. This made more sense, though: they wanted to keep their bloodline pure, and puberty is the time when the body is ready to conceive and reproduce. Therefore, the teen years were originally meant for marriage. It's not out of pornography that Malle created this film. It's out of truth. It is true. Today, still. The movie showed exactly what all of you who despise this film believe. It took a lot of thought to produce this film. The architecture, the plant life, the community, the underage drinking. From what I've seen and known growing up around the Big Easy, it's all pretty much true. I believe what you dislike is that it actually happened. It's a historical film. It's factual. New Orleans has changed, but there is no escape of the past. The Saints just won the SuperBowl after 43 years of failure. We can't escape the fact that our first playoff game was in 1990, 23 years after the team manifested. We can't escape the fact that Katrina's devastation could have been slimly less grim because those who were too hard-headed to flee stayed and died. We can't escape the fact that we have been the murder capital of the United States. We can escape the fact that we are the murder capital of the United States, but only for the same reason that so many of you are complaining. Times have changed, but those times are forever in history. Times will change again. Fortunately, we weren't too late for the times to change and this movie to never have existed.