Myabe I was expecting too much. After hearing about the play for so many years, I finally was able to get my hands on watching the film version. First off, its not really a movie per se as much as its a filmed version of the play. To me, this was the truly distracting thing of the movie. Two totally different mediums, totally different ways of telling a story.
The dialog at times came off as stilted and trying too hard to sound like *authentic* Hispanic speak. Eh. To each their own. Olmoses performance in it is astounding, coming off as extremely despicable.
Some rather nit picky things. It bothered me when Olmos comes out as the (heavily implied) Aztec native. The connection is made that a true Mexican is one who is touch with their native roots, a rather narrow definition in my opinion. Also, there is almost absolutely no feminine perspective in the entire movie. None, other than the stereotypical loca chica drunk. Those were the things that I had the biggest problems with.
Henry's own demons, for me at least, is what makes this movie worth watching, and the manipulation of even then modern cinema could have done a lot with that, but squandered it. We see him caught between being one who is in between the hyphen (the idea as a Mexican-American, he is neither Mexican nor American, but in between) asking if he should listen to his conscience or El Pachuco (or even if his conscience is El Pachuco, which is a personal theory of mine, but opens a whole 'nother can of worms that ties into the Aztec thing that is enough for a thesis paper)
Fantastic soundtrack, and if you should happen to have the luck of coming across it, than I would definitely buy it, as its excellent.
All and all, its an interesting perspective on Mexican-American lives in LA during the 1940's, and a small glimpse of the Zoot Suit Riots.
Final grade: C+ for effort.
The dialog at times came off as stilted and trying too hard to sound like *authentic* Hispanic speak. Eh. To each their own. Olmoses performance in it is astounding, coming off as extremely despicable.
Some rather nit picky things. It bothered me when Olmos comes out as the (heavily implied) Aztec native. The connection is made that a true Mexican is one who is touch with their native roots, a rather narrow definition in my opinion. Also, there is almost absolutely no feminine perspective in the entire movie. None, other than the stereotypical loca chica drunk. Those were the things that I had the biggest problems with.
Henry's own demons, for me at least, is what makes this movie worth watching, and the manipulation of even then modern cinema could have done a lot with that, but squandered it. We see him caught between being one who is in between the hyphen (the idea as a Mexican-American, he is neither Mexican nor American, but in between) asking if he should listen to his conscience or El Pachuco (or even if his conscience is El Pachuco, which is a personal theory of mine, but opens a whole 'nother can of worms that ties into the Aztec thing that is enough for a thesis paper)
Fantastic soundtrack, and if you should happen to have the luck of coming across it, than I would definitely buy it, as its excellent.
All and all, its an interesting perspective on Mexican-American lives in LA during the 1940's, and a small glimpse of the Zoot Suit Riots.
Final grade: C+ for effort.