Picture yourself in an unfurnished warehouse …♪where crack selling people have track-marks for eyes♫ Ahem. Sorry, got carried away for a sec. Where was I? Oh, yes: Warehouse. A battle has taken place here. All there to be seen in this venue is police tape and dead bodies. And on every dead body is a tattoo of your exact date of birth. That would freak you out, am I right?
Turns out our cop hero, Diego (Raúl Castillo), has a deceased twin brother, Pedro (Raúl Castillo también), who was active in the drug cartel underworld. Hmmm, you think those things are related? Nah. There’s a witness here to the slaughter, but his name is, literally, “Silent.” Hmmm, I wonder if he’s a blabbermouth? Doesn’t matter; a bit of sharpshooting later and Silent is dead in the cop car.
This is Diego’s world; it’s violent and angry. The film reminds us of a time when Diego and Pedro were kids and met El Chicano, a masked biker who inserted himself into neighborhood discussions with random assassinations. Here, I had a bit of trouble with the screenplay; El Chicano seemed like a vigilante, but his targets didn’t seem to be clear-cut bullies. It’s kinda like if Batman only stalked fellow billionaires on the (fair) assumption that they were bad people. Perhaps it doesn’t matter; El Chicano is a symbol, and perhaps his vigilantism can rise again to subdue the local turf wars.
There are elements of this film I definitely enjoyed: Diego’s search for his cultural and familial legacy becoming -in reality- a search for himself. That’s a classic plot when not handled so clumsily. The elements of El Chicano himself, in which he becomes something of a Latino Batman. (I really loathe the idea that El Chicano is a second rate Batman, but … he is.) While I dug Diego’s digging, however, I would have enjoyed a little more depth among the supporting cast. What’s baby Batman doing this for, anyway?
Hispanics have been traditionally underrepresented in American film … for Lord knows what reason; what, you can’t find anyone of Latin American background in Los Angeles?! How hard have you been looking? “Oh, that’s ok, we’ll just give the role to Michael Peña.” Unfortunately, balancing the existential race ledger doesn’t immediately translate to great film – despite what you may think of films like Black Panther. I’m all for Hispanic legends and heroes, so long as the story is worth telling. This film setting itself up for a sequel is darn near criminal; El Chicano had un momento or dos, but pretending we loved the vigilantism enough to want another round is, how do you say, asinine? “Asinine.” Yes, that is what I thought.
Perhaps he’s no Tony Soprano
With his takedowns, mano a mano
But his true quality
Lies in obscurity
Try searching SoCal for “Chicano”
Rated R, 107 Minutes
Director: Ben Hernandez Bray
Writer: Ben Hernandez Bray, Joe Carnahan
Genre: Gang war with a twist
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Hispanic vigilantes
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Law and order cops
