The Interrupters

There’s an amazing scene in “The Interrupters’’ just past the halfway point that captures exactly how life is lived on the knife’s edge that separates what’s funny from what’s awful. The film, a documentary by Steve James, who also made “Hoop Dreams,’’ embeds itself with an anti-violence network in Chicago called CeaseFire. In part, CeaseFire comprises a bunch of former gang members, mostly leaders it would seem and mostly leaders who’ve spent time in prison. Whenever a member gets word from one of their neighborhood contacts that something’s about to jump off or has already jumped, that member arrives on the scene and tries to defuse the situation or counsel against reprisals.