This may not be a great film, but it is a very good one. It's about two young men from Mexico who enter the US illegally and wind up in New York. It is in the convention of film noir, that is the characters, under the pressure of hard times their own weaknesses and their need to survive, are doomed from the start. Other reviews here have suggested that the plot is too contrived and unbelievable, but this is a feature of film noir, fate intervenes to frustrate the good impulses of the characters and accentuates the bad. I found the drama compelling and the characters believable. There is no moral here, no uplifting commentary; fate has them in its clutches and as in Greek drama the characters appear to have free will but are really caught up in the inevitable downward spiral.

I will not give away any of the plot twists but this film kept me guessing. Nothing was predictable or commonplace. There was no overt message about the plight of immigrants except the movie conveys a powerful impression of what it must feel like to be an illegal immigrant in a big city without money, friends or support. But the movie isn't a political tract, it is a gripping drama meant to entertain, not instruct. It is very like a lot of the 'B' movies of the 40s and 50s, products of entertainment which become art in themselves. On the other hand it reminded me a lot of "The Bicycle Thief" by Vittorio de Sica.

What I've discovered in Sangre de mi Sangre, a recent thriller about two Mexican boys who go to New York, is the movie I thought Slumdog Millionaire would be. This is a genuine film about living in poverty and maybe surviving it. Slumdog is an unjust combination of positive thinking and Hollywood clichés that results in a severe lack of authenticity. It may have been an effort to depict India's economic landscape, yet its sanitized, unrealistic story undermines the effort to present poverty holistically. Sangre avoids this simple mistake by showing us potentially real people in a situation entirely conceivable. It also takes place in a wealthy country and forces us to focus our attention squarely on the poor characters.

Pedro and Juan are two older teenagers who pay off a good ol' boy to enter the United States. They may be of similar age, but Pedro is much less experienced at being an adult. He's idealistic that he will meet his father in New York City and live the American dream. His father is said to own a restaurant. Juan is less calculated and more opportunistic. He is going to New York because that's where a lot of immigrants go. The two meet on the bus ride up there, and Juan slips away with Pedro's documentation and, thus, his identity.

In New York, a distraught Pedro wanders around until he meets another impoverished Spanish speaker in Magda. She has the distinction of being a U.S. citizen that can speak both languages. She originally attempts to have him arrested since it would invigorate her droll life of selling trinkets and sex. The two of them fall into an awkward, survivalist love. As nice as it is to have another person around, you still have to think about yourself on occasion. Pedro is scarcely able to do this and rescues Magda from a pervert who pays him for use of her body. He would've gained fifty bucks too.

Juan has no qualms with living ruthlessly in New York. He meets the father character and convinces him he is Pedro. The old man is just an employee at a restaurant and has been emotionally hardened due to years of lonely labor. He doesn't respond the way Juan wants him to at first. Juan preserves and partially fulfills the sueño americano by earning some money and the old man's trust. He now has the money to get laid. Who do you think he consults? Pedro sees him and attacks him, and the fitter boy wins.

It is hard not to see the biological influence in this film. It takes place in 21st century New York and Darwin's wisdom still applies. The circumstances have changed, but the more dominant male triumphs over the lesser one. Juan is the narrative's antagonist despite his being the natural hero. It's rare for a domestic movie to be so blunt.

The filmmakers do not make a stance as to which side they support. The film is almost a documentary in its unbiased focus on each of its main characters. Pedro's part is more memorable because it provides the human focus needed in this fictional film. Everything in Juan's life is based on his imperative to survive. His parts are rather boring with forced humor about his out of touch views regarding women. We didn't want to see a movie about Juan, but as this film is a dissertation on poverty, he had to be the winner.

SANGRE DE MI SANGRE (also known as PADRE NUESTRO) is a fast-paced, raw, and rather brutal indictment against the cruelty immigrants face upon entering this country. Written and directed by Christopher Zalla the film may cover territory becoming a bit overexposed in cinema of late, but the story is so well told and acted that it rises to the top of the films currently available about the experiences immigrants (from Mexico, in this case) endure in trying to better their lives under the torch of the Statue of Liberty!

The film opens in Mexico where a young criminal Juan (Armando Hernández) narrowly escapes his pursuers by jumping over the border fence and landing in a situation where a coyote (corrupt border guard) is loading his truck with immigrants to transport them for cash to New York. The street-wise Juan is one of many stuffed into a truck and happens to sit by a young illiterate lad his age named Pedro (Jorge Adrián Espíndola) who is on his way to meet his father who lives in New York ('a man who owns a restaurant') but whom Pedro has never seen (he carries with him a letter to his father from his recently deceased mother). Through all manner of staging errors and transportation glitches, the two young boys, full of dreams of a better future in America, land in New York. Juan loses his money and his ID and steels from his newfound friend. Pedro encounters a streetwalker named Magda (Paola Mendoza) who promises to help Pedro find his father Diego (Jesús Ochoa). But Jaun has found the dishwasher Diego first, claims to be his son, and causes confusion and discord in Diego's life. How the two lads manage to survive the complexities of life in Brooklyn and are swept up in the raw life of crime that surrounds the lives of illegal immigrants makes for a complicated story, but one filled with unforgettable characters and emotions.

This film had an unfortunately brief run in the theaters. It is a well-made film in every aspect and deserves wider audience which now, on DVD , it just may reach. Highly recommended. Grady Harp