Gut-wrenching, brutal, and powerful, American Me is not enjoyable in the conventional sense, but nevertheless stands out as one of the year's most impressive purely dramatic offerings. It's a story of violence and its dehumanizing consequences that, in some ways, is reminiscent of The Godfather, with characters that echo those from the Puzo/Ford-Coppola epic. Director Edward James Olmos fearlessly takes aim at the culture of machismo which has enveloped so many inner city youths. This is an unrelenting, unalloyed condemnation of that lifestyle, a portrait of the sort of brutality that violence begets.

The story centers around Santana (Olmos), a small time hood on the outside who becomes a big time prison gang leader on the inside. Santana supposedly organizes his fellow prisoners in an attempt to improve their conditions, but what he's really after is power. Once he has tasted it, he can't get enough, and those who stand against him are ruthlessly trodden underfoot, often ending up in the morgue.








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