There’s a need for a Latino superhero film.
“El Chicano” is not it.
Ben Hernandez Bray’s film (he also co-wrote it with Joe Carnahan) is an origin story of a barrio avenger, sort of, but it takes its time getting there. Along the way it’s long on violence and short on storytelling. It aims high, working in the realm of myths, but it does so in hit-or-miss fashion.
On the plus side, it’s got George Lopez — in a dramatic role, no less.
The film begins 20 years in the past, with twin brothers scurrying around the barrio in LA, warned by an old man that when the sky turns black, bad things happen (in other words, at night, though this is a way of saying it Bray is so pleased with he’ll repeat it later). After a face-off with police, a masked man dressed in black roars up on a motorcycle, then stabs the neighborhood’s leader.
This stranger, though it isn’t clear for a while, is El Chicano.
Twenty years later Diego (Raúl Castillo), one of the twins, is an officer with the LAPD, arriving at the scene of a slaughter — and all of the victims have the word “mito” (myth) tattooed on their arms, along with Diego’s birthday.
Which is also the birthday of his twin, Pedro, of course — except that Pedro is dead, supposedly having committed suicide after a short, crime-ridden life.
Capt. Gomez (Lopez) — who was there the night El Chicano showed up as a beat cop — is as eager to keep the FBI from taking over the case as he is to solve it. That’s tricky business. The deaths are a small part of a larger scheme hatched by a Mexican crime lord called El Gallo (Sal Lopez), who believes California was stolen from Mexico and wants to reclaim it (you can’t accuse Bray of aiming low). And his right-hand man in the barrio is Shotgun (David Castañeda), a childhood friend of Diego’s — and the son of the man El Chicano stabbed all those years ago.
For a good portion of the film, it just plays out like a crime drama, though there are occasional hints of the power of the dead, or a mysterious scene of a knife being blessed in front of a makeshift altar.
But bit by bit Diego’s investigation leads him on the path to becoming the new El Chicano. He’s kind of a Mexican American Batman, only without the millions — a man consumed by grief and the need for revenge, a vigilante who will work outside the law to bring villains to justice.
El Chicano works way outside the law. This is Batman with dual submachine guns.
It’s all leading to a showdown, of course, although Bray struggles a bit to convey its dramatic impact. It has to do with the way he stages and edits the big fight scene. We’ve grown used to incoherence in the Marvel movie battles, perhaps — it seems to be an accepted part of the story — but here it’s a fight between two people. You’d think it would be easier to follow. But Bray jump cuts constantly, never letting the scene play out for more than a second or two without another edit. Maybe it’s supposed to show intensity? Mostly it’s just confusing.
But the film ends with a threat and a promise, which is shorthand for a sequel, if this one makes any money. I hope it does. It’s an interesting concept, and maybe Bray, or someone else, will get it right next time.
‘El Chicano’
★★
Briarcliff Entertainment presents a film directed by Ben Hernandez Bray and written by Bray and Joe Carnahan. Rated R (for strong violence and language throughout). Running time: 107 minutes. Opens Thursday at local theaters.
