Walkout
In an era when so many movies about inner-city youth focus on gangs, drugs, and violence,Walkoutdeserves props for its sincere depiction of the peaceful efforts of Chicano students to effect positive change in the Los Angeles school system. The year is 1968, a time of profound social upheaval, what with the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the escalation of the Vietnam War, the chaotic scene in Chicago during the Democratic Convention, and so on. In East L.A., a young schoolteacher (Michael Pena) tries to instill pride in his students, reminding them of Chicano contributions to the Civil War and 'Nam and taking them on a tour of the west side, where they see how the other (i.e., whiter) side lives. Laura Crisostomo (Alexa Vega from theSpy Kidsseries), a good girl and ace student, soon finds herself caught up in the movement to improve conditions at local high schools--much to the chagrin of her dad (Yancey Arias), a strict Filipino immigrant mistrustful of "agitators" (this father-daughter dynamic, while not the film's only cliché, is perhaps its most obvious). Said conditions are not, in fact, all that horrendous; there's nothing good about corporal punishment (students are "swatted" for speaking Spanish during an English lit class), of course, but the lack of Mexican food in the cafeteria and the fact that school bathrooms are closed during lunch are hardly issues of earth-shattering importance. The students persist nonetheless, leading to mass boycotts (the titular "walkouts"), the predictable over-reaction by police and other authorities, and, eventually, some tangible results. All of this is presented by director Edward James Olmos (who also has a small onscreen role) and three screenwriters in the kind of earnest, inspiring style of a TV movie of the week (the film originally aired on HBO in 2006). But whileWalkoutis hardly what you'd call "edgy," its efforts to refute stereotypes and promote Mexican-American cultural awareness are nothing if not admirable. Bonus features include three audio commentary tracks, with participation by Olmos, the writers, and executive producer Moctesuma Esparza, who was part of the student movement (and is portrayed in the film).--Sam Graham