*** Warning Contains Spoilers***
La Mission
La Mission is a well produced film by the Bratt brothers, with Peter Bratt writing and directing the script. It is a film that portrays the conflicts of the Latino community in La Mission.
Che Rivera (played by the delicious Benjamin Bratt), an ex-con and recovering alcoholic, is a well known and respected figure in La Mission. He works driving a city bus and does good deeds for his neighbors, while teaching the youngsters the code of honor he upholds. Yet he is also a man very quick to anger, violent and very, very machista. He is a single father to his teenage son Jesse, whom he loves until he learns that he is gay.
Although the neighborhood is located in San Francisco, which is very liberal, Mission has very deep rooted traditional Latino values. Homosexuality is not only unacceptable it is also ridiculed.
Che goes from loving father to violent man at the discovery of his son’s secret. He confronts Jesse about it and the two end up having a very public fist fight where his son’s secret becomes common neighborhood knowledge. Che unable to accept his son, kicks him out and Jesse goes to stay with his Uncle Rene and Aunt Ana (portrayed by the gorgeous Talisa Soto).
Che starts to drink again and his anger basically begins to destroy his “relationship” with his new neighbor Lena and even his love for his lowriders. We get the sense that this is a drift that father and son will never overcome.
While we expect Che’s friends and family to be as intolerant as he is, they turn out to be much more accepting of Jesse. Yet not everyone in the neighborhood is willing to overlook his homosexuality and soon we see Jesse being ridiculed by some of his peers and finally shot in a confrontation with one of them. Yet even after this attack Che can’t accept Jesse’s sexual orientation and harasses Jordan (Jesse’s boyfriend) when he runs into him at the hospital. This is the final straw for Jesse who gives up on his father and finally leaves for Los Angeles (and UCLA) following his high school graduation.
Lena turns out to be a catalyst for Che’s redemption and in the end we see Che driving to LA in the lowrider car he had fixed up for Jesse as a graduation gift. Leaving us with the hope that father and son overcome the drift in their relationship and that Che has finally learned to see past his intolerance for people who are different from him.
La Mission’s likable characters and honest and believable dialogue leads us to not only enjoy the film but also care about its characters. I found myself feeling as sad, happy, distressed and scared as the characters in the film and rooting for them every step of the way.
If you get a chance to see the film, I highly recommend it.
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