American Me (1992)

Directed by

Edward James Olmos

Genre

drama film, prison film, biographical film, crime film, hood film

Country

United States

Runtime

2h 05m

Rated

R

Rating

7.4 of 10 from 406 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

The film follows Montoya Santana as he helps found the Mexican Mafia inside California prisons. It traces his rise and the gang's growth across decades.

grittybleakintensebrutalrawmelancholicvisceral

What happens

American Me is a 1992 American crime drama film produced and directed by Edward James Olmos, in his directorial debut, from a screenplay by Floyd Mutrux and Desmond Nakano. Olmos stars as Montoya Santana, who is loosely based on Mexican Mafia boss Rodolfo Cadena. Executive producers included record producer Lou Adler, screenwriter Mutrux, and Irwin Young. The film is a fictionalized account of the founding and rise to power of the Mexican Mafia in the California prison system from the 1950s into the 1980s. The film received positive reviews from critics but was a box office failure. In 2024, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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