Chop Shop
September 2008 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

I’ve always marveled that some film directors are able to wring professional-caliber performances out of amateurs. Director Ramin Bahrani shares his secrets in this process on the energetic and revealing commentary track for this DVD. It would seem that the first thing to do right is to pick the best non-actors for the roles. The choices for this film seem letter perfect. Rahmari then tells us that he rehearsed the main actors for five weeks, putting them in the actual settings so they would be used to them. That way, they can seem entirely natural and at home. I suspect, from watching one of the rehearsal segments in the modest extras section, that Rahmari also employs Altmanesque techniques in letting his players improvise.

His principal actor here is a young boy, Alejandro Polanco, called Ale for short. Yes, the character's and actor’s first name are the same. This is true throughout the cast. Isamar Gonzales plays Isamar, Ale’s sister, and many characters just play themselves. It all goes a long way toward providing an entirely natural, almost documentary-type feeling that is extremely realistic.

Ale doesn’t go to school and lives in one of the worst neighborhoods in Wilet’s Point, an area of Queens, New York. He works at a chop shop, which provides bargain and, we suspect, low-on-quality body repairs in the daytime and processes stolen vehicles at night. He also peddles pirated DVDs and anything else he can get his hands on. One of the best scenes in the movie finds Ale and a friend entering a subway car with boxes of candy bars, loudly proclaiming their purpose, then going from person to person collecting dollar bills for what must be assumed stolen goods. This scene was shot cold with a few members of the cast placed in a car with real passengers.

The boy lives in a small room provided by the owner of the shop and is joined by his sister. They are very close and saving money together to buy a lunch wagon so they can go into business for themselves. No banks in that neighborhood. Everything is transacted in cash, and Ale stores his in a coffee can under a floorboard. It’s the kind of existence that few of us can imagine experiencing, but this film makes one realize that a lot of people do live it, still maintaining a hopeful attitude while taking care of each other as best they can.

Alejandro Polanco is appealing and moving as Ale. His big eyes register his inner emotions in such a way that he doesn’t need dialogue to convey his thoughts. Isamar Gonzales was a good pick for the sister. Thanks to Bahrani’s rehearsal technique, Polanco and Gonzales are so comfortable around each other that one can believe that they are true siblings. All of the other roles are cast with people who just do what they do every day and are therefore totally authentic.

The story is not the big thing in this movie. It’s as if we dropped into these folks’ lives one day and then suddenly we dropped out because we had something else to do. The film doesn’t really begin and end; it starts and stops, leaving us knowing that the characters will probably go on living the same lives and dreaming the same dreams without ever achieving them.

The DVD's picture seems true to the film. It has good definition and surprisingly robust color. The outdoor scenes seem unfiltered and are often on the edge of being too bright but never cross that line or lose their richness. The audio is, for all practical purposes, mono. There’s no music until the end credits; the rest of the movie uses source music, so dialogue and working sounds make up virtually all the soundtrack, which is clean and clear and entirely serviceable. The extras, as mentioned, are not plentiful, but the commentary track is quite a bit better than average.

Bahrani is only 32 and this is but his third movie. He is a director to watch; my gut tells me he will soon deliver his masterpiece. Chop Shop isn’t quite that, but it is well worth seeing.

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