La Bamba Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

La Bamba Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 10, 2014

If, as we were instructed by one William Martin Joel, “only the good die young,” Ritchie Valens must have been very good indeed. In an era long before video first made and then killed the radio star, Valens unexpectedly created two big hits at the tender age of 17, including one of the progenitors of Chicano Rock, the immortal “La Bamba,” from which this 1987 film takes its name. Perhaps because his career was so tragically short (just a handful of months, actually, when one considers his national presence), or perhaps due to some subliminal lessening of his importance that might (might) have vestiges of xenophobia (if not outright racism), Valens along with J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson is often accorded a kind of Gilligan’s Island “and the rest” status when the sad events of February 9, 1959 are recounted. As Don McLean so famously intoned in “American Pie,” that was the “day the music died,” in a horrific plane crash that killed Valens, Richardson and the guy who usually gets top billing in this particular obituary, Buddy Holly. While La Bamba shares a certain lo-fi ambience with its cinematic sibling The Buddy Holly Story, there’s an all important and salient difference: La Bamba was made with the support and participation of Valens’ (born Valenzuela) family, unlike the Holly outing which had to surmount several obstacles with regard to Holly’s group The Crickets, members of whom had already sold the film rights of their story to another consortium not involved in the Busey film. That gives La Bamba the perceived imprimatur of authenticity, and if the biopic stretches the truth here or there for dramatic effect, it doesn’t rewrite things with the same audacity that the Holly film did. Bolstered by a fiery but sweet performance by Lou Diamond Phillips as Valens, La Bamba can’t quite overcome the depressive realization that all of this talent is going to literally go down in flames, but with vigorous musical performances and some good attention to detail, it’s at least possible to enter a sort of state of denial until the inevitable is referenced at the film’s close.

That inevitability is referenced almost from the get go in La Bamba, with a recurring dream of a devastating plane crash that haunts Valens (Lou Diamond Phillips). An actual freak midair collision had bizarrely killed one of Valens’ young classmates at school when debris fell on him, on a day when Valens had been absent to attend a family funeral. Nonetheless, the mere thought of such a tragedy somehow invaded Valens’ psyche and made him deathly afraid of flying, something La Bamba exploits portentously, ominously foreshadowing the sad demise of Valens.

While that particular fear (and the image of the exploding aircraft) continues to provide some subtextual angst to the proceedings, La Bamba charts Valens’ improbable rise to rock ‘n’ roll prominence while also detailing some roiling family and interrelationship dysfunction between Ritchie, his relatives, and, ultimately, the family of the woman for whom he would write his biggest hit, “Donna.” (Contrary to popular misconception, “La Bamba”, which was the flip side of “Donna,” never actually charted as high as Valens’ ode to his girlfriend.)

The Valenzuela family is shown to be hard working migrant farm workers shepherded by Richie’s (as he initially spelled his name) mother, Connie (Rosanna DeSoto). When Richie’s half brother Bob Morales (Esai Morales) shows up, things become almost immediately more chaotic, not just due to Bob’s status as an ex-con, but the fact that he seemingly magically woos Richie’s girlfriend Rosie (Elizabeth Peña). The departure of the now new couple seems to leave several issues hanging in the air, but the film segues fairly seamlessly to a few months later when Richie and his mom have made a new home for themselves in the San Fernando Valley, and Richie is happily ensconced in high school, nursing his twin loves of playing the guitar and his new girlfriend, Donna (Danielle von Zerneck).

La Bamba works in a little cross-cultural conflict when Donna’s family isn’t thrilled with their daughter dating a Hispanic boy, but the film soon centers more on Richie’s fortuitous meeting (somewhat fictionalized in this particular version) with burgeoning record executive Bob Keane (Joe Pantoliano), who hears Valens at a concert, signs him to his label, and convinces the lad to change his name to Ritchie Valens (the first name’s spelling was hoped to separate him from the pack of other Richies, while Valens was felt to be more “acceptable” than the “foreign” sounding Valenzuela).

Ping ponging again to the family dysfunction side of the equation, La Bamba focuses on Bob and Rosie, who are not exactly enjoying the happily ever after of their dreams. Bob is kind of a lout and Rosie is pregnant, leading to discord, something exacerbated by the fact that Ritchie is starting to attract considerable attention for his talents, leading to sibling jealousy. That said, Ritchie is also experiencing romantic issues, courtesy of Donna’s family’s staunch stand against her dating (or even seeing) Valens. The two brothers temporarily put aside their differences to try to party away their heartache in Mexico, leading to Ritchie’s discovery of the folk tune that would ultimately become his posthumous signature tune, “La Bamba.”

There’s such an inherent melancholy to Valens’ story that even the perhaps questionable elements that are stuffed into La Bamba can’t really upend the film’s palpable emotional impact. With an exciting soundtrack which includes performances by Los Lobos (among others), La Bamba captures the energy of early rock ‘n’ roll while also espousing a certain kind of pride in Chicano culture and music that may not be overtly referenced but remains as a potent undercurrent throughout the film. Phillips captures Valens’ unique combination of innocence and swagger. Some may feel the melodramatic aspects of the film are overwrought, and indeed not even required given the built in drama of Valens’ meteoric rise and sudden death, but the film feels resolutely “real” quite a bit of the time, especially with regard to the relationship between Valens and Keane.

La Bamba Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

La Bamba is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Twilight Time with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. This is another great looking transfer from Sony-Columbia, one that supports the sometimes kind of drab and dusty Southern California ambience with a surprising amount of vividness. While the palette here isn't overly varied, there is a very nice range of tones including everything from the browns and greens of the fields to the nice, crisp looking red and black checkerboard sound baffling behind Valens in Keane's recording studio. The recurring plane crash footage is considerably grainier and softer than the rest of the feature, and may have originally been shot in 16mm to provide that look (see screenshot 5). The grain field is natural looking and well resolved. There are no compression issues of any note, nor any signs of over aggressive digital intrusion on the image harvest.

La Bamba Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

La Bamba's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix offers great support for the film's fantastic music, with a nicely propulsive low end but excellent clarity in the lower midrange as well, giving the guitars a really solid but fluid sound. Dialogue is problem free, and the film offers some good use of ambient environmental effects courtesy of both outdoor sequences and the crowded dance halls that Valens begins to play.

La Bamba Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Director/Writer Luis Valdez, Actors Lou Diamond Phillips and Esai Morales and Producer Stuart Benjamin. This is a surprisingly lowkey commentary, considering the number of participants, with some dead spots interspersed with some interesting information on the shoot and how Valdez had to fictionalize certain elements of the story.


• Audio Commentary with Producers Taylor Hackford and Daniel Valdez. This is a bit more "disciplined" (for want of a better term), with good, consistent information on elements like the producers' meetings with the real Valenzuelas and how that played into the final version of the film.


• Isolated Score Track is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. This has some final mix elements in it, with some volume shifts, as in "Ready Teddy" by Little Richard that plays under the scene where Bob takes off with Rosie.


• Original Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:26)

La Bamba Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

So. . .there has to be a "Big Bopper" biopic in development somewhere, doesn't there? Then we'd finally have our trifecta of tragedy with regard to the "day the music died." That unavoidable sadness tends to undercut some of the inherent ebullience of Valens' story, including his infectious music, but La Bamba is still a nicely nuanced portrait of a young man (boy, actually) who died long before his time. If this film wallows in a bit of artificial melodrama, that's actually small change given the liberties most Hollywood "biographies" typically take. Technical merits are very strong, and La Bamba comes Recommended.