Blood In, Blood Out

Miklo, Cruz and Paco in front of an old station wagon

Clearly intending to do for Chicanos what Scorsese and Coppola did for Italian Americans, 1993’s Blood In, Blood Out cannot be accused of a lack of ambition. A big, long, zeitgeist-tasting tale of life in and around the gangs inside and outside prison, it follows three East Los Angeles guys on a journey from callow youth to some sort of maturity, each winding up in a place he might not have expected. Miklo, Cruz and Paco are three streetwise Chicanos. Spanish peppers their streetspeak as they swagger around their rough neighbourhood in cartoon exaggerations of masculinity. Cruz is a street artist with ambitions to be something more. Half-brother Paco is a cock of … Read more