One hesitates to give any credit whatsoever to The Real Toronto, the underground DVD that's earned front-page headlines and reportedly has become one of Toronto's hottest commodities. The documentary purporting to take us inside the city's most crime-ridden areas is supposed to be incendiary for its depiction of "gang members, drug dealers and some of the realest street rappers in Toronto," waving their guns, threatening "snitches" and boasting of their exploits protecting their turf. Mostly, though, it's just boring and depressing.

If the film's 22-year-old director wasn't so obviously in awe of his subjects, and was prepared to actually interview them, we might be on to something. Instead, "Madd Russian" more or less waves a camera in their faces and tells them to act "real" - which means most of the hour is taken up with boasts about their realness, a recital of various aliases and interminable sequences of freestyle rapping.

Still, buried in all the bravado is the occasional nugget of wisdom. And early in the film, a soft-spoken character going by the name of "Peep Sho" offers a lucid take on how youth get sucked into gang culture.

Growing up in rundown, crime-ridden areas, he suggests, kids see little cause for optimism. Then, as they approach their early teen years, drug dealers dazzle them with their relative power and wealth. Before long, they're emulating their new role models. Before they're even adults, they're so immersed in that culture - and so unfamiliar with any other one - that they rarely get out.

It's not an entirely original insight. But in a week in which Torontonians are talking about the causes of this year's wave of bloodshed, it's a good starting point.

Yesterday, Ipsos Reid released poll results showing 63% of Torontonians consider "glamorization of gang culture through popular media" a major factor in the recent violence. They're no doubt right that it plays a role, as evidenced by the degree to which the various characters in The Real Toronto paint themselves as emerging gangsta rappers. But it's local icons -- the more successful dealers and gang leaders who rule buildings and neighbourhoods - that kids are emulating as much as 50 Cent.

Today, another batch of poll results shows a frustrated public passing around blame - to the Mayor, the provincial Attorney-General and the courts in particular. But while more police, tougher sentencing and other popular solutions would surely help, it's debatable how much it's really within the power of politicians or judges to curb the problem.

In the long-run, certainly, there are public policies that could make a world of difference - among them adopting a new approach to public housing that stops putting all of its residents in the same decrepit neighbourhood. With those dwellings spread out across the city, at-risk kids could be better integrated into broader communities rather than packed into ghettos where gangs are the strongest authority and the drug trade the biggest industry.

Even that sort of reform, though, wouldn't prevent gang culture from continuing to pervade certain neighbourhoods. And there's no way it could be done in time to save kids currently coming of age. For that to happen, it's not political leadership that's needed so much as community leadership.

What young males are lacking in Rexdale or Jane-Finch or corners of Scarborough are proper role models. Fathers, particularly within Toronto's Jamaican community, are too rarely on the scene to provide a strong influence. And with anyone who makes it in a middle- or upper-income profession heading for the hills, education and career models that most of us take for granted often seem like foreign concepts.

Rectifying that situation is a challenge that local sports stars, members of the Toronto Argonauts in particular, have recently embraced by branching out to tell kids about how they worked their way out of ghettos. But as worthwhile as those efforts are, it's not football players that most kids can realistically model themselves after.

Somehow, doctors and lawyers, office workers and tradesmen have to take a stronger presence in the community. It's no easy task: There are only so many mentoring programs that can be set up. But it's necessary.

The subjects of The Real Toronto don't incessantly break into rap just to prove their street cred. They do it, too, because they see music skills - along with a basketball career - as the only way to a better life.

As one young man tells the camera, "you're either a rapper, a baller or a dealer" - and since few are skilled enough at the first two options to make a career of it, it's the final one youth fall into.

As long as that's the model set for them, many won't even reach the age at which they should know better.