Wednesday, April 01, 2015

La Mission

La MissionThe Gist: A father and son live in San Francisco’s La Mission district, where being a Latino man means being tough and holding your own against other tough guys.  Their relationship and the district’s own acceptance will be put to the test when the father discovers that his son is gay.

Three things are of note in La Mission.  One is the very promising Jeremy Ray Valdez, who plays Benjamin Bratt’s gay son.  He’s a very good actor and shows a lot of promise.  Bratt is excellent too, by the way.

The second is the movie’s musical score, which benefited from the direct involvement of the real-life Che Rivera and is so perfectly tailored to the many important moments in the movie that it becomes its very own character.

The third is the grace and seriousness with which the filmmakers approached a theme as delicate as open homosexuality in a hyper-masculine environment like the Latino heavily-patriarchal community.

The Bottom Line: La Mission is a really good movie for the three reason highlighted above and it really deserves to be watched.  You won’t regret it.

Grade: 8

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