With a first-person look at the notorious Crips and Bloods, this film examines the conditions that have lead to decades of devastating gang violence among young African Americans growing up in South Los Angeles.
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.
– Manohla Dargis,
New York Times,
23 Jan 2009
fresh:
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.
– Elizabeth Weitzman,
New York Daily News,
23 Jan 2009
fresh:
Deals almost entirely in known facts, but it's still a revelatory film.
– Peter Hartlaub,
San Francisco Chronicle,
20 Feb 2009
fresh:
Peralta is a compassionate filmmaker.
– Lisa Kennedy,
Denver Post,
3 Apr 2009
rotten:
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.