Before Your Eyes: One Last Chance (1998) User Reviews

it was good .had a lot of information

[devin_hoog · 10/10 · 22 May 2010]

I loved it.It let me know a lot about him that i needed

to know because"IM HIS DAUGHTER." I wasn't aloud to see the show until I got a little bit older to understand.

And still to this day I love him with all my heart even though he had a chance and messed it up.I like that people got to see me and my mom after she had me in the hospital room. He didn't know what was right and what was wrong he was just a kid at the time. When i saw this show it made me want to cry because of everything he had to go through when he was a child i blame his mother mostly for it. but some people are different then others but i still care for them. i wouldn't know what i would do if i never saw this.because i wouldn't know my father and who he was.

A kid in trouble, a man who's learned

[katie-538 · 10/10 · 18 April 2008]

This IS a cautionary tell, but it is also a tale that is made for TV and puts a spin on things that may not necessarily be accurate. Knowing the subject of this documentary for almost 9 years now, there is a lot that wasn't shown.

Yes, Juan Carlos Castro made mistakes, and yes he should have learned sooner. But, by the grace of God, there go I. If you had grown up with this childhood, would you have been able to turn it around in the time allotted? Juan Carlos Castro deserved to go to prison. He deserved to be punished for his crimes. Did he deserve 35 years for it? You be the judge...

a cautionary tale

[dtucker86 · 30 September 2002]

I saw this special on 48 Hours and it sort of reminded me of Scared Straight. I think every kid in trouble should watch it because its the most cautionary tale I have ever seen of what happens if you don't wise up and straighten up! Juan Carlos Castro was born on the streets, his mother was a prostitute and he basically had no one to turn to. He was one of the toughest street kids in Tampa at only 14! The story opens as a compassionate cop arrests him and has him put in a boot camp for troubled teens. He flourishes under the guidance of a tough but caring police drill sergeant. A social worker studying juvenile delinquency decides to take him in and give him a home, but he starts messing up and a fails a drug test, he gets sent back to boot camp and then the social worker decides to give him another chance. What does he do? Five days before his probation is up (five days!) he steals a car and gets arrested. He gets probation again and then goes back to Florida and gets arrested. Castro is sentenced to a year in prison and upon release is classified a repeat offender. Under the states tough new laws, he can be sentenced to life with no parole if convicted of a crime. This detective who first arrested him gets him a job teaching kids, but he starts using cocaine and quits his job. He gets arrested for purse snatching and for two armed robberies. Unlike most documentaries on troubled kids that I have seen, this one has a completely downbeat and unhappy ending. Juan Castro is only faced with two choices. If convicted, it is life with no parole, if he pleads guilty, he gets 35 years with no parole and no appeal. He will be in prison until the year 2033 when he is 54 years old. The last two images are the detective who tried so hard to help him crying in the hallway after he is sentenced and the last shot of this poor dumb kid sitting alone in a barren cell. This is not a cheerful story by any means, but kids need to see it. It makes me angry that this dumb kid had so many chances to go straight that so many other kids never have and he wasn't smart enough to see it!