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The Rock And A Hard Place

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Between a Rock and a Hard Place seems quite an appropriate title for this HBO documentary whose executive producer and star is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Young men with serious criminal charges and significant prison sentences are provided a second chance by participating in the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department’s Boot Camp Program in place of serving their entire prison sentence. Dwayne Johnson greets 38 cadets starting the program, lectures them on their opportunity and asserts that he wants the world to see the importance of the program. Lastly, he cautions them bluntly, not to “… f**k this up.” For most people it would appear that participating in this 16 week program would be easier compared to the alternative of …show more content…

The documentary covers the support the program supplies through the various exercises, counseling sessions, classes and work opportunities. The program offers each of these benefits at different phases. The documentary presents each participant in a way that it is difficult not to find some way to relate and even care for them or their sense of purpose.
Notably, the program appears thorough with its design to offer support systems and provides various means of addressing potential obstacles of a cadets’ success, such as lack of education, lack of support from family, anger management and substance abuse. Even so, a viewer cannot help questioning some of the harsh treatments. For example, in the beginning you are introduced to two young men who struggle with understanding the English commands that a drill instructor is barking at them. Later within the documentary, these same cadets are taken aside and told they are expected to work harder to overcome the challenge of not understanding English. Towards the end one cadet ends up breaking down sobbing because he fails one of his critical tests towards graduation, due to the language barrier. Though there are classes to help the participants learn to prepare for a GED, there are no tools to help them learn English. It appears to be an unfair hardship for these two Spanish-speaking young men.
Another concern regarding fair treatment, is though there are many who respectfully follow every command and satisfy every

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