American Me, when people hear this they might think of a movie or a book related to the history of the U.S. because of the word American. But, the truth is that in away it is because the movie is based on a true story that happened here in the U.S. and in another way it is not because the movie is about Mexican-American gangsters. American Me is one of the greatest movies I’ve seen; I like it so much that I think I see it like twice every month. I think that the reason why I like it so much is because it shows the background and life of a Mexican-American gangster living in L.A. back in the 1970-1990’s

This great movie focuses on a teen named Santana played by the great Mexican-American Actor Edward James Olmos who, with his friend Mundo and the white vato loko that acts as if he were Hispanic and feels the same way J.D., form their own gang and are soon arrested for a break-in. There, they are been chased by the rival gang and end up hiding at a neighborhood store. They didn’t know the owner was inside which called the cops and soon got arrested for supposedly breaking-in the store. Inside prison he would start earning respect after killing the one who controlled everything inside and that tried to rape him.

Santana would get in trouble again and goes straight from reform school to prison, spending 18 years there and becoming leader of a powerful gang and control people, both inside and outside the prison, while inside. When he is finally released, he realizes that life is different outside of prison. Outside, he had no control of almost anything. It was all different to him. Weeks later he would back to prison this time for supposedly possession of drugs. Inside, he would be killed by his old best friends, vatoz lokos, compaz, camaradas, homies, what you want to all them.

Although Santana (which was the protagonist of the story) dies, the movie was still very good. I encourage people that like gangster movies to watch this one because of all the action and mostly drama. If you’ve seen the movies Blood in and Blood out or Colors and liked them, than you know what I’m talking about, but if you haven’t well what are you waiting for. You don’t really get to see these kinds of movies now in days.