There is hardly better way for a film maker to earn street cred than being threatened and having members of his cast and crew murdered by powerful criminal organisation unhappy over the way it was portrayed on screen. This dubious honour belong to actor Edward James Olmos, who got concealed weapon permit for his personal security following production of his feature directorial debut, 1992 gangster film American Me.
The plot is loosely based on the real life career criminal Rodolfo Cadena, best known as the most prominent member of Mexican Mafia a.k.a. La Eme, notorious prison gang in California. It begins with prologue set in Los Angeles during 1943 Zoot Suit Riots where beautiful Mexican American girl Julie (played by Evelina Fernandez) gets raped by racist white US Navy sailors in front of her boyfriend Pedro Santana (played by Sal Lopez). Sixteen years later their son Montoya (played by Panchito Gomez) lives in impoverished East Los Angeles neighbourhood and, having nothing else to do, joins a local teen gang and engages in petty crime that would ultimately bring him to juvenile hall. There he gets raped by another inmate (played by Eric Close), but almost immediately retaliates by killing the rapist. That act would get him long prison sentence but also earn respect by other inmates, which Montoya would use well when he gets transferred to notorious Folsom State Prison. There, now adult Montoya (played by Olmos) with the help of his old friend J. D. (played by William Forsythe) becomes one of the leaders of La Eme and builds enormous power through prostitution, protection racket and drug trafficking, making the organisation powerful both within and outside prison walls. But when he gets released after eighteen years and returns to his old neighbourhood he finds that too many things have changed in the meantime, and that he missed so many things people outside prison take for granted. After starting his first romantic relationship with Julie (played by Evelina Fernandez), he becomes troubled over the effects drugs and violence have over his community and begins to contemplate different way of life. Other gang members see this as a sign weakness and when Montoya returns to prison, this proves fatal.
American Me was produced in times when drugs were flooding American inner city neighbourhood and fuelling vicious gang wars with thousands a victims, something that the film reminds audience of in its closing credits. The film tries to deal with those issues by showing how gang life is anything but glamorous and that instead of adventure and fun ends in prison, death or both. Olmos tries to add to his message with as much authenticity as possible. East Los Angeles neighbourhood and Folsom were used as location, and real life prisoners and gang members served as extras. American Me, apart from featuring a lot of violence, also doesn’t spare audience of other forms of unpleasantness, like in the scene that shows how the drugs are smuggled into prison through canalisation and various body orifices. Olmos, a great actor whose presence radiates authority like in Battlestar Galactica, doesn’t have to work hard to successfully portray powerful leader. When that leader who, ironically, finds himself clueless and powerless while being brought into ordinary world outside prison walls, Olmos’ acting skills are even better.
Olmos is, however, less skilful as director and American Me and it reflects in film being overlong, sometimes poorly lit and too many scenes that emphasise style over substance. One such example is scene in which Montoya’s clumsy attempt to make love with Julie are intercut with brutal prison rape. All that make American Me unnecessarily “artsy” and potentially confusing. Critics nevertheless liked the film, while real life La Eme did not, apparently unhappy with their members being portrayed as involved in homosexual activity, utterly disliked in machismo-obsessed Mexican American gang culture. This led to campaign of intimidation and violence against Olmos’ crew members. While interesting and well-acted, American Me didn’t actually live to its proper potential. A year later Taylor Hackford partially covered the same story in more epic and more conventional film Blood In Blood Out.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/ Leofinance blog https://leofinance.io/@drax.leo Cent profile https://beta.cent.co/@drax Minds profile https://www.minds.com/drax_rp_nc Uptrennd profile https://www.uptrennd.com/user/MTYzNA
Unstoppable Domains: https://unstoppabledomains.com/?ref=3fc23fc42c1b417 Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax Bitcoin Lightning HIVE donations: https://v4v.app/v1/lnurlp/qrcode/drax Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax 1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e
BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7
