El Chicano (film)

El Chicano is a 2018 American superhero film directed by Ben Hernandez Bray, who co-wrote the screenplay with Joe Carnahan. It stars Raúl Castillo, Aimee Garcia, and George Lopez. The film has been called the "first Latino superhero movie". It premiered in September 2018 at the Los Angeles Film Festival and was released in the United States on May 3, 2019.

Premise
After a gang leader named Shotgun murders several members of his own gang, Los Angeles police detective Diego Hernandez learns of a connection between the gang murders and the death of his own brother Pedro. Diego's investigation reveals that Pedro had planned to resurrect the identity of a masked vigilante named "El Chicano" in order to repel the incursion into East Los Angeles of a Mexican cartel led by a Mexican nationalist seeking to reclaim California as Mexican land. When his partner is killed, Diego decides to assume the "El Chicano" identity himself to fight back against the cartel and seek vengeance against Shotgun for his collaboration with the cartel.

Cast

 * Raúl Castillo as Pedro Hernandez / Diego Hernandez
 * Aimee Garcia as Vanessa
 * Jose Pablo Cantillo as Detective Martinez
 * David Castañeda as Shotgun
 * Marco Rodríguez as Jesus
 * Sal Lopez as El Gallo
 * Marlene Forte as Susana
 * Kate Del Castillo as a cartel leader
 * George Lopez as Captain Gomez

Production
The script began as Bray's memoir about the death of his brother, who had been involved with gangs, but Bray turned the memoir into a story about a fictional vigilante named "El Chicano". Carnahan and Bray then completed the script in a four-week collaborative writing session at Carnahan's home near Palm Springs. They pitched the script for El Chicano in 2017, but interested studios expressed concerns about the all-Latino cast, and ultimately passed on the film. The pair found new investors from the oil and gas industry who partnered with Carnahan and Frank Grillo's production company WarParty Films to produce El Chicano. The film was mostly shot in Calgary. Following the film's premiere at the LA Film Festival, Briarcliff Entertainment acquired U.S. distribution rights.

Critical response
, the film holds an approval rating of 35% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 26 reviews by critics. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 47 out of 100, based on reviews by 12 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

The Hollywood Reporter praised the cast, including Castillo's "charismatic performance in the lead role" and the "vivid impressions" left by Marlene Forte and Aimee Garcia. The Los Angeles Times positively noted the more inclusive take on "Hollywood cop movies from the ’80s, when masculinity came only in a macho shade", but also criticized the film's portrayal of Mexican nationals as "demonized, criminal, carnage-friendly, nationalist invaders". Writing for TheWrap, critic Monica Castillo similarly drew attention to the "fear-mongering cartel tropes" that failed to "undo the damage of hateful rhetoric aimed at Latinx and Latin American people". In discussing the film's violence, the San Francisco Chronicle observed that "these blurry, hurried scenes are among the most frustrating elements in a largely disappointing movie", while The New York Times noted that its "political and thematic purpose" was unclear.

Accolades

 * Best Feature Film, Maryland International Film Festival