American Me (1992)

Admirable film.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I honestly thought it was a good flick -- worthy of 8-stars, but I'm giving the film 10-stars to counteract the tool who said he gave it 1-star because he thought the overall rating was too high. :)A powerful and realistic look into the gang culture within the Mexican American population. Very gritty and very disturbing, as a it should be.

This film is obviously a bit of a cult classic, infamously resulting in the deaths of three consultants. With real gang members in the prison scenes it has the credentials. Personally, I thought this was a little overrated. It has an interesting arc as observed by many other reviewers, and the way the inter-generational ripple effect is demonstrated is captured well.My main issue with it is everything is telegraphed. The main plot events are visible from a mile away and everything is really overblown, with intrusive music and a typical Hollywood heavy handedness. What could have been a really good film was a little empty, with very little character development. Personally I found 'Blood In, Blood Out' a much better film.

I had trouble even giving this movie a 4. I'm really confused as to why everyone loves this movie. First of all, the poetry thing was terrible. It's a superficial attempt at giving the gangster protagonist an "artistic side". In this way, we're immediately supposed to love him and pray for his transformation. This type of thing should be developed in a plot and not just thrown in as a device. Having him reflect his life through rhymes doesn't give a character depth, it just reveals the intentions of the filmmaker. The rhymes stop once the subject becomes trickier, but that's where the real poetry should begin. There is a difference between simply manipulating the audience and revealing details to them over a period of time.Moreover, the film lacks creativity with known plot standards. Extremely brutal scenes with a protagonist we're supposed to sympathize with. In an apocalyptic finale, our Christ figure sacrifices himself for the good of future generations; future generations who rebuke him and commit the same sins. Thus, the endless cycle of violence ensues. It's the tale of every gangster film and I'm not saying the cookie-cutter is bad; I'm just begging for creativity when one approaches the cookies. Scorsese did it with style. He gave us the option to sit as outside viewers and judge our character for his actions. Jack Lamotta's poetry was terrible, but Scorcese knew that. Tarantino gave us strange dynamic characters and off the wall dialog.One can't just take a genre and reproduce it with Mexican characters and nothing more creative than Spanglish and expect the film to be a success. One can't even expect it to be a proper portrayal of Mexican-American crime culture. Human beings are more complex than this.That being said, gangster films are tough this day in age. I'm always slightly skeptical because the filmmaker has to be original, or it will be a flop like this film.

"American Me" is a story of the growth of strength in the Mexican mafia during the 1970s and 1980s. It tracks the development of some of the key figures from their earliest days running the streets and coming into conflict with the authorities to the period in which the Mexican mafia developed great influence in the California penal system and on the streets of California influencing the drug trade. The film is based on a true story and tracks some of the same ground covered by "Blood In, Blood Out" which was released a year later. It works in flashback, from the later thoughts of director and star Edward James Olmos as Santana. The film is told as a flashback as advice given to his nephew to avoid the gang life which he has embarked on.This is gut-check cinema. It's not for the faint of heart. The acting is excellent from Olmos as gang leader Santana and his right-hand man JD (William Forsythe). Olmos plays Santana as extremely world-weary. One can see in Santana's face the toll that his time in prison and role in La Primera (the Mexican mafia) has taken. William Forsythe is fantastic, playing JD very low-key and as committed to the Mexican mafia as Santana, so much so that perhaps he forgets he is not Mexican at times! The intra-gang and interracial conflicts are powerfully and graphically portrayed. Nothing is held back in depicting what happens in jail but it has the ring of truth and ultimately, if one wrongs one's gang, one will be held accountable by that gang.This movie really deserves mention along with great gang movies like Goodfellas, The Godfather, and Boyz in the Hood, for its no-hold-barred depiction of the brutality and cheapness of life, but also the brotherhood and sense of identity gained within a gang.