Bound by Honor (1993)
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The intertwined lives of three Chicano relatives are forever changed by the violent realities of gang life and imprisonment.
The story
In 1972, after a violent confrontation with his abusive father, a teenager of half-Mexican descent leaves Las Vegas for East Los Angeles. He moves in with his cousins, Paco and Cruz, who are members of the Vatos Locos gang. Miklo joins the gang following an attack on their rivals, the Tres Puntos. When the rivals retaliate, the cousins' lives are disrupted by violence and injury. As the years pass, the three men find their paths diverging: one enters the military, one becomes an artist, and one is imprisoned for murder, leading to a series of choices that will define their futures.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
Following a violent confrontation in 1972, Miklo Velka joins his cousins Paco and Cruz in a Los Angeles gang. After a retaliatory attack by rivals leaves Cruz with a permanent back injury, Miklo kills a rival leader and is imprisoned in San Quentin. There, he rises through the ranks of the La Onda gang. Meanwhile, Paco joins the Marine Corps and later becomes an undercover police detective, while Cruz becomes a heroin-addicted artist. Years later, Miklo is paroled but is caught in a botched robbery and re-imprisoned. He eventually rises to a position of power within La Onda, navigating complex alliances and conflicts with the Aryan Vanguard and the Black Guerrilla Army. After a series of betrayals and a bloody peace conference, Miklo expands La Onda's influence across the Southwest. In the end, Paco and Cruz reconcile with their pasts, and Paco realizes the weight of his role in Miklo's transformation, ultimately finding a sense of forgiveness.
- Original title
- Blood In Blood Out
- First release year
- 1993
- Runtime (minutes)
- 180
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English; Spanish
- Directors
- Taylor Hackford
- Writers
- Jimmy Santiago Baca · screenplay; Floyd Mutrux · screenplay; Ross Thomas · story
- Cast and characters
- Jesse Borrego · Miklo Velka; Benjamin Bratt · Paco; Enrique Castillo · Cruz; Damian Chapa · not specified; Danny Trejo · Geronimo; Jimmy Santiago Baca · prison inmate and member of the La Onda council
- Genres
- crime drama; crime thriller
- Themes
- loyalty; consequence of violence; identity
- Tone and mood
- serious; gritty
- Premise and plot tags
- prison drama; gang violence; multigenerational
- Source material / true-story basis
- Based on the experiences of writer/poet Jimmy Santiago Baca.
- Reception
- Critical reviews were mixed to positive, and the film became a cult classic among parts of the Mexican-American community.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 64% · scale: percentage · review count: 14; Metacritic · score: 47 · scale: 100 · review count: 12
- Production trivia
- The title refers to the initiation ritual of having to kill someone to enter a gang and not being able to leave unless killed.; The film was originally intended to be part one of a two-part film.; The production used a local artist to create a mural on plywood panels to simulate a painted surface on a reservoir wall.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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