Zoot Suit (1981)

Well, this is an odd duck of a motion picture. Writer/director Luis Valdez appears to have adapted his play for the screen by not technically adapting it at all. For the most part, Zoot Suit is like training a camera on a stage play, complete with live theater sets and choreography. Occasionally, he takes another step back and has the movie viewer see an audience watching an actual play, but there's never any much aim to that. There are some songs here but not enough to truly make this a musical. The story is simplistic and halting, filled with two-dimensional characters and one-dimensional dialog that's peppered with enough slang and Spanish so that you've really got to pay attention to follow what's going on. It's also preachy and more preoccupied with being socially conscious than entertaining.The point of this film is to give people a look at what it was like to be Latino in 1940s Los Angeles. It does that by following Henry Reyna (Daniel Valdez), a young gang leader as he and his friends are prosecuted for a murder they didn't commit. Henry and his friends, though, aren't the sort of gang bangers you see today. They were "zoot suiters", wrapping themselves up in high-waisted pants, long jackets, big brim hats, long chain loops that hand down their sides and switchblades in their back pockets. Trailing after Henry through all his experiences is El Pachuco (Edward James Olmos), who is some poorly thought out mix of imaginary friend, alter ego and narrator of the play.I could go into Henry's trial, his virginal girlfriend, the union organizer who spearheads his appeal and other stuff, but that's not really what Zoot Suit is about. It's about the racism faced by Latinos in 1940s America as they tried to claim their piece of the American Dream and how they sometimes internalized that prejudice. The tale of Henry Reyna is just a pretext for a lot of shorthand pontificating about that, but this movie is neither smart nor serious enough to say anything interesting on those subjects, especially not with Edward James Olmos strutting through the film like a bad guy from the 1960s Batman TV show.It's weird construction aside, Zoot Suit isn't terribly performed. However, it's overwhelming sense of unreality is alienating and there's not enough fun here to counteract that. If you watch it, you'll understand what writer/director Valdez is trying to say and wonder why he chose such a strange way of expressing it.

Simply stated, a great stage play, on film, complete with audience, on film. Olmos is very good,yes,yes. Tyne Daly? Interesting casting choice, not a bad one; it was 1981 after all. Yet I keep asking myself (and of course those darlings at the MPAA) "WHY IS THIS FILM RATED R?" WHY!!!!??? (really, why?) Spanish swearing? 2 naked male actors in fetal positions? A reference to W.R. Hearst? Come on! Make sure to see THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED for the skinny on the MPAA. But seriously folks, WHY is it rated R? LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD is rated PG 13 because they only say F&&K twice- three times makes it R - Jeez, go figure! I saw nothing blew up in this film, I did see some under pants on the female dancers but those were tap pants and not close up....

Luis Valdez does a great job directing one of my favorites, Zoot Suit. This film is coming to DVD on March 4th, '03 and is a must see. Valdez should be making lots more movies (He also directed La Bamba...) The music is great and the staging is very good. James Edward Olmos does a great job. Don't miss this one.

This is one of the best statements, made musically, about anti-Mexican-American prejudice ever made. It is set in Los Angeles, during World War 2, when young 'chicanos' or 'pachucos' used the unique style of the zoot suit to set themselves off, and establish a florid machismo. Some of the plot is based on an actual incident. The movie is made as if showing a staged 'play,' in front of an 'audience,' in order to make particular statements about the way things appear to be. Edward James Olmos is the spirit of Pachuco, haunting Henry Reyna, the central character. We are brought to feel intensely both the striving for self-expression of the chicano youth, and the intense prejudice (based, as always, on ignorance) of the larger anglo society against them. Those of us who are anglos also come to identify with the anglos in the story who genuinely care for them and for justice. Four stars, especially for anyone from the southwest who is not a bigot.