Lowriders - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Lowriders

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie
Family is the first and foremost important aspect of life. In that I have a hard time disagreeing. While I find many aspects of my life fulfilling and important, family is ONE of the most important. Where you come from and who you grow up with shape your whole life. Even if you turn into something completely different, those who raised you most definitely make a large impact on your growing up. Lowriders is a film about family and pride. What matters most in your life and what you’re willing to do to achieve your dreams. It doesn’t really make any new waves, or manage to be anything more than a curiosity, but the independent film does have a unique flair and style that keeps it breathing far past when it should have died out.

Danny (Gabriel Chavarria) is a young and very skilled street artist who makes his high school years about expressing himself on building walls. He’s a happy go lucky Hispanic youth who spends most of his time hanging out with his friends and dreaming about the future. Painting on building walls is just an external expression of his internal artwork, living in a poor family. His father Miguel (Demian Bichir) is is an ex con who makes his living running an auto body shop that specializes in decking out lowriders and making them works of art in their own right. He’s not so happy about his son Danny being a street artist, and thinks that his skills are better suited elsewhere, in an outlet that will make him money as he grows up. Like his own street car business.

Miguel spends most of his time grueling over his lowrider “Green Poison”, and living a life devoid of alcohol, after his nearly ruined his life and his older son’s years ago. This older son, known as “Ghost” (Theo Rossi) is in prison, but soon gets out to roam the streets once more. Ghost is a talented tattoo artist who only lives to feel the approval of his father, as well as enact revenge for what he believes is his father’s faults in his own life and the destruction of Ghosts. Danny finds himself torn between his older brother and his father, but a young girl named Lorelei (Melissa Benoist) pushes Danny to achieve his greatest talents, while still remaining true to his family and his own life.

Lowriders is about expression of art. Danny expresses himself through his street art, and Miguel through his lowrider creations. Ghost does his own expression through his tattoos and violent behavior, but this is all just a facade as it destroys the family unit when each person’s art isn’t harmonious with the others. The real purpose and “message” of the movie is that the individual’s unique art style doesn’t have to destroy, or tear down the family unit. Even though it seems to be a fracture point for the Hispanic family, the world of creativity and art is the same aspect that creates a bond through a family unit. It’s only up to the three men to realize that common bond and capitalize on it.

As much as I understand the message in Lowriders, I have to feel that the movie can’t seem to capture the emotion and energy of the message that it tries to teach. The art and lowriders play a significant role in the film, but the message is lost among a crud ton of posturing and typical gangster behavior in the end. The character arcs play out as a beat by beat rendition of every family torn gangster movie, and just incorporates lowriders into the picture instead of girls, sex, or power. The film drags on at an inexorable pace, and even though the third act tries to redeem itself with the typical family bonding sequence, it just feels tired and worn out, despite the heavy cultural vibe that it tries to immerse itself in.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for language, some violence, sensuality, thematic elements and brief drug use




Video:

Once again, I have next to no verifiable information about the shooting style of Lowriders, but I have my suspicions that it was a digital shoot due to the budget and look of the film. It’s a heavily stylized movie, with lots of golds and soft earthen hues to accentuate the Latino “vibe” of the movie. There’s a LOT of golden overtones in the night and daylight sequences, with the daylight ones looking the most normal. Colors can be bright and vibrant when dealing with the cars, and more dull and washed out when Ghost and Danny have their meetings in the dark of night. Blacks are good, but do show some washed out black levels and mild banding here and there. Fine details on the cars look great, with sharp clarity around facial details, but long shots tend to look mildly hazy and soft, and the finer detail points in those shots aren’t are sharp as they could have been. It’s a good looking film, and one that’s heavily graded to achieve a certain look, which isn’t any fault of the encode itself.





Audio:

Lowriders features a very capable 5.1 DTS-HD MA track that doesn’t really stand apart from the pack, but also handles everything with apt ease. The dramatic film tends to be front heavy for a majority of the time, but also employs enough use of the surround channels during arguments and the musical numbers to fill out the back end. The LFE is pulsating and energetic during the club scene, as well as making a good base for the Latino inspired score. As I said, it doesn’t really stand out from the tons of other great tracks out there, but it also is more than capable of handling everything that the film asks of it without fail.




Extras:

• Lowriders: Art, Love, and Family - Featurette
• Ghost's Arrival
• The Culture of Lowriders - Featurette

Final Score: ​

Lowriders advertises itself by saying it’s from the producers of 8 Mile and American Gangsters as if it’s the next great gangster film, but it’s really just a cliched little drama about family and growing up with what you’ve been given. There’s some potential there with the lowrider scene, but the film is very quickly squandered by copying every poor and downtrodden upbringing before wandering off into the classic redemption story of people who learn the error of their ways in time to live happily ever after. Everyone puts their heart and soul into the Latino project, but I just couldn’t find any emotional connection with the project. Audio and video is more than capable from Universal, but the limited extras are a bit light on information. Worth a curiosity rental, but not much more than that.




Technical Specifications:

Starring: Gabriel Chavarria, Demian Bichir, Theo Rossi
Directed by: Ricardo de Montreuil
Written by: Cheo Hodari Coker, Elgin James
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Studio: Universal
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 98 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: September 5th, 2017

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Interesting, but flawed rental

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I will skip this one.