Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Ed-Shullivan Spanish versus blacks versus white supremacists in a 1970-1980's melting prison pot just ready to boil over. Three young men living in a working class east L.A. neighborhood defined by the many gang- banger's who want to build their reputation for being the biggest bad asses are ready to rumble and look for any excuse to get it on next to their "homies".The three main characters are aspiring artist, lover and drug addicted Cruz (Jesse Borrego), ex-boxer turned law enforcement officer Paco (Benjamin Bratt) and angry mixed breed Spanish/White Miklo (Damian Chapa) who grow up together in a gang but as life takes its course over two decades these three men fight their own demons alone and sometimes pitted against one another.If you want to fight the bull sometimes you get the horn and Miklo who is struggling to gain acceptance of his mothers Spanish heritage because his skin color is white is constantly fighting the race card on all three sides of the Spanish, white and black prison gangs. Miklo is the one of the three young men who ends up in prison and must gain the trust of his Spanish prison gang members if he is going to survive his years in imprisonment. Although Damian Chapa's acting as his character Miklo was exceedingly over emphasized as an angry "Chico" we just never see a two dimensional character. On the brighter side the two other main characters Cruz (artist) and Paco (cop) evolve into men with a conscience and so they periodically reflect back on their younger gang war years as a brotherhood that must be respected but also realizing it was in their past and not in their future.There are some other great supporting cast members such as Raymond Cruz as Chuey the druggie, Victor Rivers as Spanish prisoner Magic Mike, Danny Trejo as Spanish prisoner Geronimo, Carlos Carrasco as Spanish prisoner Popeye, Ving Rhames as a prison gang intelligence detective named Ivan, Delroy Lindo as Bonafide the leader of the black prison gang, Tom Towles as white supremacist Red Ryder, and Billy Bob Thornton as white supremacist Lightning. As you can see by this depth of the talent pool most of whom went on to greater Hollywood fame, the director Taylor Hackford utilized his young talent pool to his full advantage and to the viewers greatest benefit.This film is a tad over 3 hours long, but surprisingly, there are no dead spots throughout the film. The intertwined stories of the 3 Spanish homies Cruz, Paco and Miklo are blended so well that we the viewer can only anticipate what is going to happen next, and to our surprise everything is not as it seems in their Spanish neighborhood, nor in the prison where Miklo grows into a hardened lifetime criminal battling the blacks and Aryan racists proving himself over and over to favor his Spanish heritage gang members.It took me 23 years to finally watch this film but I believe that Blood In, Blood Out has withstood the test of time and the storyline is still relative today as it was three decades ago when it was released in the early 1990's. So many great male stars went on to have great movie careers and this film could only have helped build their film resumes with such strong personal acting performances in a tough gang related film such as Blood In, Blood Out. I give the film an 8 out of 10 rating

Callum_fl07 Picked this up at a wal-mart, always had a liking to gangster movies based in L.A but had heard little about Blood in Blood out so wasn't too sure if it would be that good, but have to say this is one of my favorite movies of all time! I not only rate it up there with L.A gangster movies but with the likes of gangster movies Scarface, Goodfellas, Casino etc. It is that good! It just doesn't have World class actors like Pacino in, but never the less the actors involved are fantastic at their roles, The director/producers deserve credit too because every detail about this film is perfect, the setting, the locations, the lingo used and even the extras look exactly how you would expect hardened Mexican/Black/White prisoners to look. Danny Trejo is in this and he along with the others makes you feel like you are actually in San Quentin. I HIGHLY Recommend this to anyone that likes gangster movies or interested in American prisons and the history of prison gangs, I definitely will be watching this over and over and just wish I discovered it earlier, if anyone knows anymore movies like this with actors like Borrego, Trejo etc please let me know

paypalscam9002 I watched this movie back in 1993 when it cames out and probably over 20 times since (we're in 2011 already).Recently we bought a 3D TV and i wanted to see this movie again on our new 47" LED 3D... This movie is no doubt a masterpiece.A lot of people didn't see this movie back in 1993 but i believe the marketing responsible to promote the film did a terrible job.This movie should win some sort of Oscar... (beleive me i've seen thousands of great hits from 1960s to 2011 and Blood in Blood out should be listed among the top 50 drama of all time... it is in my top 20 without a doubt.I'm not going to review this masterpiece as there is no word strong enough to give justice to this work.The acting is really good. The special effect is too. (It's like every actor were born just to play in this movie).Have you ever watched a movie to the end and that years later you still want to know what happened to all the characters ? and of course will be willing to see another sequel ? Well this is the kind of movie that will make you say: I WANT MORE plz!

ferdinand1932 Oh dear...what a mess.This film is so incompetently written that it could be used masterclass in how not to write anything at all. For a start it is repetitive beyond all belief: same riffs on blood ties, brothers, mothers, fathers and cousins etc etc etc ad nauseam throughout. Tedious to a degree that is extraordinary that it passed the producers.Secondly, the script has two pitches: loud and violent. That also makes it very boring. It is obvious how things will be shown in these two modes. A violent film can work on other levels but the writers are so inept that it escaped them to give this a few more tones.Thirdly, the story lacks precision as if it lacked a good editor. Therefore it has adopted the familiar course of amateurs, and that is to add everything in the story without giving it a balance and counter balance. There is no editorial overview of how to shape material within a reasonable time period. It is also very very long ..."Anna Karenina" is long, but that was by Tolstoy and he has some claim to be one of the greatest writers of all time.Fourthly, the actors: oh well, and the report card is depressing. Basically two modes of action. The leads are all generally terrible, especially Mr Chapa, whose performance might be compared to a guard dog with distemper. Such monotony should not be viewed in a feature film.As with anything that that exemplifies all that is detritus in film making, there are so many other things to mention but space precludes a fuller list of its faults. The music for instance, with its deliberate sentimental Spanish guitar style in the few quiet moments showed all the artistic intelligence of a fast food restaurant franchise.Almost anything on earth is better than wasting the time that is this dreadful waste of one's own too short life.