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05/23/07
Chop Shop (2007)
95 %
Reviews Counted: 42 Fresh: 40 Rotten:2 Average Rating: 7.8/10
Consensus:
Filled with excellent performances, Ramin Bahrani's deft sophomore effort is a heartfelt, hopeful neorealist look at the people who live in the gritty underbelly of New York City.
Runtime: 84 mins
Synopsis: Set in Willet's Point, an industrial sprawl of auto repair shops and junkyards in outer New York City, CHOP SHOP tells the story of 12-year-old Alejandro (Alejandro Polanco), an orphan living a hardscrabble existence in the "Iron Triangle." The boy earns a meager living hustling customers... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Alejandro Polanco, Isamar Gonzales, Rob Sowulski, Carlos Zapata, Ahmad Razvi
Reviews
What Chop Shop does well, is take us into America's hidden Third World for a bit of culture shock.
07/21/08
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07/09/08
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07/09/08
In this clear-eyed, quietly absorbing film, director Ramin Bahrani opens up a wedge of Third World America that operates, all but invisibly, in plain sight.
06/27/08
Bahrani celebrates those who never give up, no matter how badly their dreams are shattered.
05/30/08
Top Critic
The raw power of this unassuming snapshot would make Vittorio De Sica proud.
05/30/08
It's exciting watching Bahrani explore the possibilities of neo-realism to dramatize penury and disenfranchisement among the service-class in this country.
05/30/08
Skillfully evading bleakness and sentimentality, Chop Shop is a terrifically assured piece of filmmaking.
05/29/08
Lean and gritty, the movie eschews false sentiment, but in Alejandro (Alejandro Polanco), a tough, resourceful 12-year-old who stares down reality and bounces back from his own miscalculations, the movie boasts an anti-hero who inspires hopes.
05/16/08
Chop Shop has the feel of a foreign film, but what is most likely to horrify audiences is that it's set in America.
05/09/08
Bahrani blurs the line between New York reality and fiction so effectively that his scripted films feel vibrantly authentic, as if Bahrani had simply discovered his characters and allowed their lives to proceed with a minimum of directorial intrusion.
04/18/08
The ambiguous fates awaiting Alejandro and Isamar are resonant and unforgettable.
04/15/08
Beautifully observed, and beautifully acted by the novice thespian Polanco (culled from a New York City public school), Chop Shop is at once a heartbreaker and a story of hope and the American Dream.
04/11/08
The director has created a not-to-miss gem for the discriminating viewer.
04/10/08
Bahrani deftly walks a tightrope toward insight, never falling into safety nets of judgment or unearned sentiment.
03/28/08
Three shots into Rahmin Bahrani's Chop Shop, and you're already pulled into its world with an effortless economy and precision that leave you no doubt you're in the best of cinematic hands.
03/21/08
Top Critic
Director/co-writer Ramin Bahrani ("Man Push Cart") gives a candid window into America's impoverished underbelly via a Queens junkyard neighborhood called the "Iron Triangle," where 12-year-old Latino orphan Ale (Alejandro Polanco) plans for his future
03/05/08
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(2008 release)-Ramin Bahrani's CHOP SHOP opens theatrically in the USA on Feb 27th!!!
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