Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Lowriders Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman August 28, 2017

It always comes back to family. Never mind personal or cultural idiosyncrasies, characteristics, trends, or standards, the world always revolves around family. Subculture and family come together -- clash may be a better word -- in Director Ricardo de Montreuil's Lowriders, a film about a Los Angels family torn apart by loss, time, and a failure to connect. The movie blends street art and the lowrider culture into a story that explores how differences sometimes erase similarities and even thin family blood. The film is unique in its focus on its subculture but unimaginative in its exploration of frayed family bonds. It doesn't speak resoundingly on its subject, but it explores it to satisfaction, covering well-tread ground with enough heart to lift the story, but only sometimes as high as its hydraulically enhanced cars.

Danny (Gabriel Chavarria) is a young and very talented street artist. Downtown Los Angeles is his canvas. His style is his own, as are his subjects. He comes from a talented family. His father Miguel (Demián Bichir) runs an auto shop that specializes in refitting cars into lowriders. Miguel, a widower, doesn't believe in his son's talents, at least not openly and particularly because, he believes, he's not applying them correctly. Miguel's pride-and-joy isn't his son, nor his other son, the imprisoned Ghost (Theo Rossi), but rather his prize-winning car, "Green Poison." Matters are complicated when Ghost, a highly skilled tattoo artist, is released from prison. Danny finds himself torn between his brother and father and his work. He meets a girl (Melissa Benoist) who comes to appreciate his work but gradually pushes him out of the shadows where he's most conformable working. As he battles his own inner demons and dances through a minefield in the clash between his father and brother, he must come to terms with who he is and how, or if, he fits into his the fractured family dynamic around him.

Lowriders is a movie about expression and about how that focus of expression and the inability, or unwillingness, of the others to accept that expression can fracture a family. Danny expresses himself through his art. Miguel expresses himself through his cars. Ghost expresses himself through his tattoos and his rebellious behavior. But those are the superficial expressions. They're reflective of who the individuals are, yes, and they're divisive, yes, but only because the focus is so intense that the family loses sight of what truly matters in life. It could be said, then, that the movie is also one about balance and obsession, about how the family cannot see beyond its own passions. It's about how the family communicates in ways personal to them but in ways impersonal to the others, in ways they do not fully understand. But that connective underlying tissue is there, and whether the family chooses to hold onto that, strengthen it, and eventually thrive from it is where the movie finds it most intensive drama. It's certainly nothing new at the fundamental level. The cars and art are just window dressing for what are otherwise recycled themes, but they at least offer an insight into a subculture and people that few films have previously explored.

Indeed, the movie is about not only its characters but also the inseparable personal and social cultures that define them. While its focus is on the inner person and the inter-character relationships, the art and lowriders play a significant role in the film, defining the way the characters interact and reflect how they have been raised and how they view and approach life. The two are necessarily entwined, for the thematic better but sometimes to the audience's alienation. There are a few expository scenes about how the cars are judged, what makes them appealing and unique, and most importantly, why it's important that an entrant win. It says why the cars are the lifeblood of several characters, but the audience never feels that connection. It always seems more like a concept than a tangible detail. The cast does well enough to sell the broken connection amongst one another and the sturdy connection between themselves and their passions, but the mixture and fusion of elements between family members sometimes seems, at least for the audience, more hypothetical and less something tangible. In short, the film does well to get in their heads, but not always their hearts and souls.

Lowriders Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The digitally photographed Lowriders offers a good overall 1080p image that's more a product of its visual style and limitations than any fault of the transfer. The movie favors a warm, golden-bronze contrast that's largely ever-present throughout. Skin tones are bronzed and colors are a bit less dynamic (with some exceptions, like car paint and red and blue police lights). Details are fine, never stretching the format but delivering enough textural nuance to please. General skin textures -- pores, bumps, lines, tattoos -- are nicely revealing. Cars and paint jobs are pleasantly sharp. Environments are clean and well defined, from broad city exteriors to a cramped graffiti-covered club restroom. Black levels hold adequately deep, never wavering too far towards crush or back to paleness. Mild banding infects a few scenes but is never overtly problematic. Neither is source noise.

Lowriders Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Lowriders features a standard-issue DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack that more than adequately handles the film's needs. Quality low end heft accompanies some of the deeper musical numbers in a couple of scenes, complimenting beats that find nice spread and spacing across, and throughout, the listening area. Several well placed and integrated atmospherics shape a few key scenes, whether passing traffic or blaring police sirens. Light background city din offers a healthy sense of immersion into a few locales. Dialogue is the primary sonic driver, though, and it presents with commendable clarity, positioning, and prioritization.

Lowriders Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Lowriders contains three featurettes that total less than four minutes in length. A DVD copy of the film and a voucher for a UV/iTunes digital copy are included with purchase.

• Lowriders: Art, Love, and Family (1080p, 1:22): A look at the film's coming-of-age story: a plot and character recap.
• Ghost's Arrival (1080p, 1:16): A look at what this character means to the film and the qualities Theo Rossi brought to the role.
• The Culture of Lowriders (1080p, 1:02): A brief piece that explores the lowrider lifestyle and what the cars mean to people.

Lowriders Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Lowriders offers a serviceable film watching experience that explores a father-sons relationship, the struggles of a broken family, and the disparate yet in many ways similar ways the family members express themselves. They are all in search of an outlet, but life's struggles and their inability to look beyond their own needs place them all in personal upheaval. The film succeeds in exploring the characters from afar but doesn't always succeed in peering into their hearts and souls; their desires and most intimate qualities sometimes feel more distant than tangible. Nevertheless, performances are decent enough and the movie is adequately paced. Universal's Blu-ray delivers pleasant format baseline video and audio. A trio of very brief extras are included. Worth a look on a slow day.