Film Review: Family Dynamics Provide Unusual Journey Down ‘Gun Hill Road’

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CHICAGO – Who you are at birth eventually becomes entangled in where and how you are nurtured throughout your life. Given who you are, did you get the proper care, encouragement and love? Did you get to blossom into the best part of your nature? The new film “Gun Hill Road” explores these questions, filtered through the family, in an odd and poignant way.

HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 3.5/5.0
Rating: 3.5/5.0

Written and directed by Rashaad Ernesto Green, Gun Hill Road is a clash of cultural attitudes within one three person family. It tests the boundaries of love and trust within that family on the mean Bronx streets (the nickname of the area is the title) and dares to graphically punctuate it with the journey of a transgender teenager. The film is set in a macho, posturing culture, but it is the transitioning teen that exhibits the most courage.

Esai Morales is Enrique, a tough-as-nails convict who finishes his sentence as the movie begins. He is assigned a parole officer named Thompson (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) and hopes to to turn his life around and rejoin his family, which includes wife Angela (Judy Reyes) and son Michael (Harmony Santana). Once the homecoming wears down, Enrique must face limited job prospects, a distant wife and a son who is far different than he ever remembered.

That son Michael is going through a transition of his own. He is also “Vanessa,” a female persona that he has adopted on the way to hopefully getting a full sex change. He lives a double life, but the secret he keeps is infiltrated by street spies and that information gets back to his father. Blindly angry, Enrique lashes out inappropriately, which begins a downward spiral that ends up changing all their lives.

“Gun Hill Road” continues its limited release in Chicago on September 16th. See local listings for theaters and show times. Featuring Judy Reyes, Harmony Santana, Esai Morales, Isiah Whitlock Jr. and Miriam Colon. Written and directed by Rashaad Ernesto Green. Rated “R”

StarContinue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “Gun Hill Road”

Sustenance: Harmony Spangler as Michael, Esai Morales as Enrique and Judy Reyes as Angela in ‘Gun Hill Road’
Sustenance: Harmony Spangler (left) as Michael, Esai Morales as Enrique and Judy Reyes as Angela in ‘Gun Hill Road’
Photo credit: Motion Film Group

StarContinue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “Gun Hill Road”

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