"Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" for 11/6/02: "Barrio Wars"
By JOE BOB BRIGGS
Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas
York Entertainment, the quirky B movie distributor out of El
Lay, is starting a new label called "York Latino," which will be
exploitation movies for the Spanish market but made in English,
and they had this great idea for the first in-house production:
What if you took "Romeo and Juliet" and set it in the middle
of a gang war in a Latin barrio?
Unfortunately, they couldn't get Jerome Robbins to direct
and choreograph, and Leonard Bernstein was unavailable to write
the music.
Don't worry, though. "Barrio Wars" stars the hip-hop rapper
Chino XL in a non-singing role (what's up with THAT?) as well as
plenty of bouncing around a ratty South Central El Lay apartment
in Halloween costumes. Thank God the main character is NOT named
Maria.
Angelina is her name, and love-at-first-sight is her game.
First she becomes transfixed with lust in the parking lot of the
Playboy Liquor Store by making eye contact with a sensitive
gangsta rapper in the back seat of a car occupied by the two gang
members who recently kidnapped, terrorized and robbed her while
wearing gold face masks, then fled in a hail of deadly bullets
from her hotheaded brother Rico's pistol.
Shortly thereafter she falls in lust a second time, with a
dude in a Spiderman suit who shows up at her costume party and
sweeps her off her feet by giving her a dead rose and spouting
lines like "I know your heart." She knows Spiderman's the one
when he gives her his pager number--the ultimate act of trust--
and then sneaks into her bed in the middle of the night while
she's sleeping and wakes her up by basically, uh, having sex with
her.
Criminal molestation laws not being that big a deal in the
hood, she's hopelessly in love as she prepares for her big
singing audition the next day with the guy from Playboy Liquor.
After laying down some fairly excruciating tracks, they take a
drive on Mulholland and she finds the tell-tale Spiderman mask in
his car. Yes, it's true. Spiderman is the rapper. The rapper is
Spiderman. She's in love with both of them, and both belong to
the gang that wants to kill her brother.
For reasons that aren't entirely understandable--the entire
cast tends to mumble--Rico the loose cannon soon finds out his
sister is aardvarking with a member of the hated enemy gang, so
he heads down to the Penthouse pool hall to exchange some nasty
Essays with Julio and Tito, who are hanging out with Spiderman's
sister Vanessa. Vanessa, hottest babe in the flick, reveals why
she's been hanging around the plot for so long when Rico flies
into a jit of realous fage and slits her throat. This forces
Spiderman the rapper to pursue Rico's pitfaced sidekick Santino
into the alley, fell him with multiple gunshots, then stand over
him and execute him as he begs for his life.
This tends to put a damper on the love life of Angelina and
Plato (Spiderman's real name), especially when the killer rapper
shows up in her bedroom with blood on his hands. There's only one
thing to do, Angelina decides: run away to Miami and get jobs in
a South Beach night club.
Meanwhile, Plato hides out in a ratty Venice Beach walk-up
apartment, working out a few new tunes on his guitar, and
Angelina gets another inspired idea. She'll get her best friend
Delfina to videotape her taking a suicidal overdose of pills,
then leave the tape behind so no one will go looking for them.
What she doesn't count on is that Delfina has the hots for Plato
herself, so she takes him the tape and convinces him Angelina is
dead. Operatic drama ensues.
The whole thing is narrated by "Osiris," an ex-gangbanger-
turned-record-producer played by Chino XL, who not only wins the
gold neckchain championship in a movie that has many contenders
but provides a sort of freeform poetic narration over slum
footage whenever the movie needs a segue. It's not exactly "Romeo
and Juliet," and it's not exactly "West Side Story." It's more
like Cheech and Chong's version of "Breakin' 2 Is Electric
Boogaloo," with a synthetic hip-hop soundtrack.
Yes, it's a little painful. But let's look at those drive-in
totals anyway:
Six dead bodies. Two breasts. (And yes, they are stunt
breasts. Shame on you, Angelina.) Three shootouts. Nubile-maiden
hog-tying. Aardvarking. One motor vehicle chase. Rap Fu. Drive-In
Academy Award nominations for Chantelle Tibbs, as Delfina the
Fickle, for spending most of the movie in body-hugging lingerie;
Anthony Martins, as the short-fused brother who endears himself
to his sister with phrases like "You look like a slut"; Gerardo
Reyes, as the evil gang member who says "You don't run nothin'
around here"; Sevier Crespo, as the thick-tongued but poetic
rapper and love interest, for saying "People like us never make
it out--we've got two choices in life, either the coffin or the
streets"; Luchana Gatica as Angelina, the babe in search of true
love who wails over her dying lover's body with the lament
"Didn't you get my page!"; Chino XL, as the barrio poet and
Hollywood record producer who dispenses wisdom like "Revenge
comes quickly in the barrio"; Michael Aranda, as the sensitive
bad guy, for saying "The blood is gonna f---in' spill"; Sara
Ceballos, as the doomed sister, for saying "I choose to ride or
die with them"; and Paul Wynne, the director, co-producer and co-
writer, for being ambitious.
Two stars. Joe Bob says check it out.
"Barrio Wars" Web site: http://yorkentertainment.com