Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

American Me Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson December 1, 2019

I can remember listening to the directors' audio commentaries for the Criterion LaserDiscs of Menace II Society (1993) and Dead Presidents (1995) and taking notes of fraternal twins Allen and Albert Hughes' mention that American Me quickly became one of their favorite films as it directly impacted their own work. I had not seen Edward James Olmos's directorial debut at that time but when I did, I could see the parallels. All three films gave a much-needed cinematic voice to the experiences of African Americans and Chicanos in the inner city (and, perhaps not coincidentally, in East Los Angeles). Just as Olmos painted a pretty epic canvas of the trials and tribulations of three genera­tions of a Hispanic-American family, so too did the Hughes deliver a multifaceted representation of blacks before, during, and after the Vietnam War in Dead Presidents. The character plights in American Me and DP share the same struggle of reintegrating themselves in societies they were once a part of but don't feel the same. For example, the psychological wounds of fighting in Vietnam follow Anthony Curtis (Larenz Tate) and Skip (Chris Tucker) when they return to New York. The prison inmates in American Me who are released from the California State Folsom come back to their family milieus but they're far from becoming "normal" citizens again. Their hardened lives and the drug trade are still very much a part of their identity.

Whereas the Hughes only took a few years to make their first two features, Olmos's dream project had been stuck in Development Hell since the early Seventies. The original screenplay of American Me by Floyd Mutrux and Desmond Nakano was pitched to Universal ca. 1974 and was originally a star vehicle for Al Pacino, according to industry sources. I don't know why Michael Corleone passed on it (the long shoot of The Godfather: Part II likely placed a binding time commitment to his acting schedule) but Olmos became involved shortly after his departure. It seems that Universal attempted to reignite it in 1982 but it sat on the shelf of studio executive Tom Pollock until a decade later when Universal put up $16 million to make it. American Me has the verisimilitude of a documentary owing in large part to it being shot in East LA, California’s Folsom and Chino pris­ons, and the Los Angeles County Juvenile Hall where it was later screened for juveniles there. According to Dixie Reid of the McClatchy News Service, Olmos was granted an unprecedented three weeks to film in the prisons during the sum­mer of '91. He also received permission from the California penal sys­tem to permit prisoners to appear as extras in his film. Remarkably, no skirmishes between the actors and inmates occurred during that period!

The gang's all here.

In Hispanic vernacular, the Pachucos are zoot suiters who fought with white sailors during the Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riot of 1943, the first historical time cut Olmos makes in the movie. A forty-five-year-old Santana Montoya (Edward James Olmos) narrates the story which depicts the beating of his fa­ther and rape of his mother. Olmos doesn't give a reason for the sailors' unprovoked attacks on the Chicanos beyond overt and ingrained racism. The harrowing tale also follows the exploits of Santana and his childhood friends JD and Mundo as they go from Juvenile Hall to Folsom Prison. They form the eMe or Mexican Mafia. While incarcerated, they're surrounded by and battling with other clicas or gangs such as the Aryan Brotherhood whites and Black Guerrilla Family.

I'm glad that Olmos and his writers give the audience a reprieve from the unrelenting despair and sodomized violence in the prison for the second half of the film, which is The Godfather lite in the Chicano communities. (Olmos wisely chose not to set the whole picture in the prison like the inferior Lock Up [1989] did.) Olmos gives arguably the performance of his career as the pensive and taciturn Santana. As he grows older, Santana is more reflective and philosophic about what he's done but his violent past will eventually catch up with him. William Forsythe is Santana's bald and gap-toothed partner whose always a steely presence. (The prison scenes were excellent preparation for ones Forsythe would soon do on several episodes of The Untouchables.) The film's expansive ensemble cast is too numerous to name but each actor does generally laudatory work. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who plays the derogatorily named El Japo, caught my eye. He'd deliver a great performance as the evil kung fu sorcerer Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat three years later.

American Me Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

While this Shout Select release is the first Blu-ray edition of American Me on Blu-ray, the film has been available on high-def before, premiering a dozen years ago on a HD-DVD from Universal. I've seen that transfer and can confirm that the print Shout Select used derives from the same master, although the two aren't identical. Universal's VC-1 transfer often looked hazy and also suffered sometimes from too much digital sharpening and digital artifcats. Keep in mind that the film was never intended to look glossy. As Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter pointed out at the time, Reynaldo Villalobos's cinematography has two distinct looks: the icy, almost black-and-white in Folsom Prison contrasted with the more colorful East LA which also has a shadowy and noirish look. Skin tones on some faces have a more ruddy, slightly pinkish look on the Universal. If you look very closely at the Shout Select, it's a tad cooler. See Screenshot #s 22 and 23. Flesh tones look more natural on the new release. Lawrence Toppman of Knight-Ridder correctly observed the dark corners of the frame find ample light in the remaining space for Olmos and his fellow cast members. See frame grabs 11-13 as well as some others. There appear to be less artifacts on this Shout transfer. (The first reel has possibly the most.) The MPEG-4 AVC-encoded transfer gets an average video bitrate of 29999 kbps.

Shout provides twelve scene selections while the Universal gave us twenty.

Screenshot #s 1-18, 20, 22, 24, & 26 = Shout Select 2019 BD-50
Screenshot #s 19, 21, 23, & 25 = Universal 2007 HD-DVD

American Me Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout has supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio English 5.1 Surround remix (2218 kbps, 24-bit) and the original DTS-HD Master Audio English 2.0 Stereo (1665 kbps, 24-bit). The sound track is made up of spoken Pachuco, a Mexican-American dialect or Spanglish which combines Spanish, English, and street slang. For non-English dialogue, non-removable English subtitles are present. Please note that in shot/reverse-shot, the dialogue is carried over to a different shot that doesn't feature the speaker (see Screenshot # 26). Generally, spoken words sound clear enough to my ears. There are also optional English SDH for the entire sound track and they do transcribe the lyrics from songs. Sound effects are clear and distinct. They are also spaced out pretty well. The diversified collection of songs that Olmos chose include a mixture of American and Spanish ballads by Kid Frost, Bobby Day, Shirley and Lee, Ike & Tina Turner, Los Lobos, Mariachi Sol de Mexico, and other bands.

American Me Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• NEW "A Look Back at American Me with the Inmates of Folsom Prison" (22:59, ) - this new featurette includes brand-new interviews with co-stars Danny De La Paz, Daniel Villarreal, and Pepe Serna. They discuss the movie's origins, Olmos's passion and commitment to getting it made, reflections on scenes they were in together, and the Blu-ray transfer compared to the image on SD. In English, not subtitled.

• Lives in Hazard (57:43, upconverted to 1080i) - this award-winning hour-long documentary is much more substantial than any studio EPK fluff. Narrated by Edward James Olmos, it chronicles the journey of American Me from the barrio to the streets of East LA. It contains interviews with real-life gang members, ex-prisoners, and survivors of the streets. Many of these appeared as extras. Behind-the-scenes footage and documentary footage practically blend in as as one. This program is transferred using the MPEG-2 codec and is mostly in English but has spoken Spanish and embedded English subs where needed. It's been available before on other video editions.

• Theatrical Trailer (1:52, upconverted to 1080i) - a full-frame theatrical trailer of American Me presented in 1.33:1. It incorporates John Williams's main theme from Born on the Fourth of July (another Universal production three years prior) as underscore.

American Me Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

American Me is a difficult film to stomach but it tells an engrossing and sprawling story of three generations of Chicanos. The editing for several violent scenes in the second half reminds me of The Godfather (and that's a compliment!) but there's a repetitiveness to how they're staged, which is beholden to the dramatic requirements needed to carry them through. I will say that I was surprised if not shocked at the content of a number of shots, which are original and not for the faint of heart. Shout Select delivers a modest upgrade over Universal's 2007 HD-DVD and we also get the original stereo mix. Shout has added three new interviews which unfortunately doesn't include Olmos or Forsythe. American Me is necessary viewing although it's a picture I appreciate more than I love. I'm hopeful that the Warner Archive Collection will finally deliver a fully restored version of Stand and Deliver, a very different drama about East LA and the inner city that netted Olmos an Oscar nomination. A VERY SOLID RECOMMENDATION for American Me.