Friday, March 23, 2018

East L.A. Warriors (1989)

Gangs in Eastern L.A. are fighting in some kind of reenactment of ancient Roman gladiatorial games. Yes this film is rather silly, and trashy and quite poor.

So i should love this film then, but I'm just not sure about it. It is executed so poorly and so weirdly it is like the awkward filler stuff in mid-80s pop videos stretched into a feature film.

That is not to say I did not enjoy a lot of it, it is cheesy and unintentionally hilarious throughout. The acting is also epically poor. So many strange pauses as if they were waiting to be told what to do next by the director... maybe they were. So it has all the ingredients of a trash classic but just lacks a certain something...

The action in the final act, the actual games, is often laughably poor, like bad pro-wrestling more than tough gang members fighting for supremacy. The gangs have cute matching outfits though, a bit like the legendary (and one of the best films ever) The Warriors - though only very slightly.

Tony Bravo is cool as the experienced but reluctant hero, well as cool as going around in a white vest can be anyway.