Crosstown (Miriam Kruishoop, 2013) USA

Reviewed by Robin Eriksson. Viewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival 2013.

This story is made in down town Los angeles and it’s about two families that comes from different places and gangs. The film opens up with a guy getting totally beat up by a couple of other kids, after a while they stops and applause  him and that was his ticket into a street gang. The guys name was Beto, and it don’t take long before he starts to deal drugs and other stuff for his gang. In that time he also got invited to join the army, but Beto refuses. Couple of days later Jesus ( Betos father ) finds him dealing drugs on the street,  Jesus walks up to his son and force him to join the army in hope to get green cards for the whole family as the army promised. So Beto joins the army believing that he’s doing the right thing for his family.

It doesn’t take long before the family get the message that Beto “died for his country”. That’s the point when the movie make a turn. The movie is more about Jesus other son and Betos younger brother Angel. Angel were one of these peaceful kids that liked to play soccer and go to school and he also met a girl called Jazmine. Jazmines father is a police officer and he forces Jazmine to stop seeing Angel because he’s  Hispanic and living in a lower class area of Los Angeles, and as a police he knows that it could be bad for Jazmine. And Jazmines father turns out to have right this time. Angel joining the same gang as Beto was a member for after he gets the message about Betos death,  he starting to shave his head and get tattoos. Angel and Jazsmine do what ever they can to meet each other, they are going to public restrooms and other “secret” places so nobody else could see them. When Angel in some point starting to get a little distance from her, Jazmine doing the only thing that she shouldn’t do, she joins the gang too so that she could get closer to him.

So this is a story is about how life could be for some families in Los angeles, and how life can change for your whole family when you join a gang.  But of course the movie shows the true face of what is like to be an illegal immigrant family “over 30% of illegal immigrants were promised of receiving papers and green cards if their young relatives joined the U.S. military but they were denied later”,