Review of Chop Shop (2008) by Ben W — 06 Aug 2010

If you ever feel like life has handed you lemons, you need to take an hour and a half and watch this film. This kid, Ale, played by Alejandro Polanco, is tough, gritty, hard working, a little street hustler, loves his sister, and tries to make their lives just a little bit better. Izzy, played by Isamar Gonzales, is the loving sister who will do whatever she has to do help him do that.

This is a hard film to watch viewed from the perspective of the reality that you feel coming through to you. There's nothing visually stunning in this film; it's raw, dirty, muddy, greasy, sweaty and reeks of bodily fluids automotive. But it will rivet you to your seat like few movies you've seen and for the same reasons that it's no prettier than the place it's set in.

That a 12 year old kid would be homeless is bad enough, but that he has to do the same work as an adult makes you wonder whatever happened to sweatshop laws. At the same time, you almost feel like thanking the kid's employer for giving him an opportunity to work and a warm, secure place for the kid and his sister to sleep at nights. I have one of those itches that gets under your skin in places you can't scratch that's the manifestation of the reality that this movie is less fiction than story telling - and story telling in the sense that it's portraying true events.

I've gotta give the kid Ale and the actor Alejandro mad props for this film. He waltzed, sambaed, limboed and break danced his way through this role. He's got a very natural presence on screen. Ramin Bahrani's direction was perfectly on the mark and I'll look to find more of his work. Rob Sowulski as the garage owner was great too, and you kind of hope there are some real Robs out there for kids like Ale.

Wow, it just didn't seem like an hour and a half. In one sense, you feel like you're stuck in that time dilation phenomenon that happens when you're in a wreck or similar catastrophe, and in another you wish there were 90 more minutes of film. 'Chop Shop' will grab you and it will hold you and it very well may render you helpless to use your remote until it's over. Film with power like that doesn't come from Hollywood anymore, just from people like Bahrani.