It's not often I see a movie about the East Los Angeles sub-culture of Lowriders, and that alone makes this worth a look. As expected, there are scenes and dialogue focusing on what makes lowriders something to celebrate. Whether it's about the cars themselves, or it's roots to the Mexican American cultural heritage in Southern California. For people unfamiliar with the subject matter, this movie should make you appreciate what these lowriders represents, or at least interest you to what it's all about. With that said, the cars alone is only one aspect of this movie. What about the rest of it?
Led by a good ensemble cast, from Gabriel Chavarria, Demian Bichir, Theo Rossi, Eva Langoria, and even TV's Supergirl Melissa Benoist, this movie is really about the characters more than it is about the cars. More specifically, this is about a Father and his sons, and generally it's really all about Family. Needless to say, their relationship with each other is complicated, but it's also quite a bit predictable. While the movie has a lot of inspiring and introspective things to say about the lives of these different personalities, the story and characters go in the direction that you typically expect it to go. It's unfortunate, but this film could have been more impressive and simply better if it didn't rely on several cliche plot tropes to move the story.
Despite the shortcomings of the screenplay, I was pleasantly surprised that this movie is essentially a low-key indie family drama. Some movie goers might have expected some other kind of film, and they probably would find this boring. There are still scenes of a criminal nature mind you, but this isn't your typical inner city gangster film. One could argue that the guns and drug dealing gangs tropes are just replaced by the rivalry between car clubs and their competing lowriders instead. Still, this movie is a nice welcome change either way.
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