Stacy Peralta's documentary traces the emergence of gangs in L.A., as well as their contexts and causes.

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Crips and Bloods: Made in America (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:19
Fresh:15
Rotten:4
Average Rating:6.8/10
Theatrical Release:Jan 23, 2009 Limited
Synopsis:
Directed by critically acclaimed documentary filmmaker Stacy Peralta and Executive Produced by NBA star Baron Davis and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Stephen Luczo, Crips and Bloods: Made in America ...
Directed by critically acclaimed documentary filmmaker Stacy Peralta and Executive Produced by NBA star Baron Davis and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Stephen Luczo, Crips and Bloods: Made in America tells the story of the Crips and Bloods, South Los Angeles' two most infamous African-American gangs.
Combining unprecedented access into the worlds of active gangs, Crips and Bloods: Made in America offers a compelling, character-driven documentary narrative which chronicles the decades-long cycle of destruction and despair that defines modern gang culture.
The shocking war-zone reality of the South LA Gangs, the Crips and the Bloods.
From the genesis of LA’s gang culture to the shocking, war-zone reality of daily life in the South L.A., the film chronicles the rise of the Crips and Bloods, tracing the origins of their bloody four-decades long feud. Contemporary and former gang members offer their street-level testimony that provides the film with a stark portrait of modern-day gang life: the turf wars and territorialism, the inter-gang hierarchy and family structure, the rules of behavior, the culture of guns, death and dishonor.
Ex-gang members of the Crips and Bloods, gang intervention experts, activists and academics talk..
Throughout the film ex-gang members, gang intervention experts, writers, activists and academics analyze many of the issues that contribute to South LA's malaise: the erosion of identity that fuels the self-perpetuating legacy of black self-hatred, the disappearance of the African-American father and an almost pervasive prison culture in which today one out of every four black men will be imprisoned at some point in his life.
Solution to the South LA gang problem..
Finally the gang members themselves articulate their enduring dream of a better life. They provide Crips and Bloods: Made in America with its ultimate statement: a message of hope and a cautionary tale of redemption aimed at saving the lives of a new generation of kids, not just in South LA but anywhere in the world that gang violence exists.--© Official Site
Director: Stacy Peralta
Director: Stacy Peralta
Screenwriter: Sam George, Stacy Peralta
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Reviews for Crips and Bloods: Made in America
The self-perpetuating cycle of hopelessness, ignorance and poverty is certainly a depressing spectacle. But it’s not a very revelatory one.
The movie feels less like a traditional documentary than an educational video. But it works the way he wants it to: you'll walk out feeling both enlightened and dismayed.
It's a lot to take in, and Peralta does an admirable job cramming tons of history and insight into his reportage on how the 'hood came to be.
Stacy Peralta's insider glimpse at the lives of LA gangs is a genuine shocker.
Although the film's strength is clearly its definitive point of view, this perspective sometimes comes at the expense of a more rigorously objective treatment.
Expect to well up while watching emotional tableaus of grieving mothers burying their babies at funerals and simply staring blankly into the camera with tears streaming down their pained faces.
Effective and selectively comprehensive, fascinating and frustrating.
With Crips and Bloods: Made in America, the director Stacy Peralta manages to put a human face on a subject that tends to inspire inflamed debate.
Peralta's presentation is so concise and efficient that it often overshadows the fact that some of his doc's contentions aren't particularly novel.
Deals almost entirely in known facts, but it's still a revelatory film.
Stacy Peralta's visual style and sense of storytelling when applied to a weightier subject than surfing or skating actually works surprisingly well.
A doc with the thrust of entertainment, but the content of a thoughtfully researched book.
A solid picture that leaves much for discussion, Crips and Bloods maps the paths, even if it leaves some lots vacant along the way.
The film works best as a history lesson of the L.A. black experience, arguing that economic neglect, institutional racism and covert government operations fueled the 1965 and 1992 riots and created the leadership vacuum in which gangs took root.
Crips and Bloods hasn't been made out of moral anger or a sense of conspiracy. As matters of journalism, sociology, and humanitarianism, the movie is incurious at best. At worst, it's a recruitment video.
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