TV Reviews : ‘Families in Revolt’ Lacks a Strong Focus

“Families in Revolt,” airing at 8 tonight on KHJ Channel 9, could have been a powerful statement by a local station with a presumably limited documentary budget.

Could have been, if producer-director-writer Philip Reeder had given a stronger focus to this show about the efforts of determined Southern Californians to kick violent criminals out of their neighborhoods.

Instead, “Families” rarely goes beyond the superficial in profiles of anguished residents struggling to organize and fight back.

The show gets off on the wrong foot in its opening segment about Norris Turner, a Compton man who bought a shotgun and went after the gang-bangers tormenting his family. He brags on camera that after gang members shot up his house one night, he walked outside and “shot one of them in the head.”

What happened to Turner? What happened to the man he shot? And where were the police during all this? We never find out, because that’s where “Families” leaves it. Lesson: Let’s all get guns and shoot the bad guys. Is this vigilante action really the solution “Families” wants to promote?

Other segments fare better, showing how different groups are coping with crime, banding together to patrol their neighborhoods, harassing criminals by, as one woman says, “being as intimidating as them.”

These efforts are far more practical than Turner’s remedy, relying on strength in numbers rather than violence. But “Families” never offers convincing proof that these efforts are working--or that they are anything more than temporary.

“Families’ ” biggest strength is its message of hope that the individual can make a difference. Unfortunately, that important message often gets lost in the telling.