Posts tagged A Better Life

“A Wonderful Film”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

A Better Life is a terrific film that deserves as much publicity as it can get, because otherwise audiences will probably overlook it and not give it the attendance it deserves.

It also has a simple story that might not be popular, because it is about the relationship between an undocumented foreigner from Mexico and his teenage son, who live in Los Angeles.

Carlos Galindo has a steady job as a gardener working for another Mexican’s gardening business, and he sleeps on the couch in the living room at home so that his 14-year-old son, Luis, can sleep in the bedroom.

When Carlos finds out that Luis has missed 18 or 19 days of school so far this year, he asks him, “You want to end up like me?” to which Luis answers “No.”

Luis has some resentment toward his father, because he blames Carlos for his mother leaving them, whom Luis never wants to talk about.

Meanwhile, the man for whom Carlos works, Blasco Martinez, wants to retire, and he offers to sell Carlos his beat-up truck so that Carlos can have his own gardening business.

To Carlos, he wouldn’t just be buying a truck. He would be buying the American Dream.

However, not only doesn’t Carlos have the $12,000 that Blasco wants for his truck, but Carlos doesn’t even have a driver’s license, and if he ever gets stopped by the police, he could be deported back to Mexico. That is why Carlos wants to try to stay “invisible.”

Meanwhile, Luis gets suspended from school for fighting, and Carlos is concerned that Luis has a fascination with gangs and might even end up in a gang.

Carlos asks his sister, Anita, for a $12,000 loan, promising to pay the money back and telling her that if it works out, everything is going to change. He won’t have to work on Sunday anymore and can spend more time with Luis, if Luis wants.

Anita loans Carlos the money without telling her husband, who she says is the cheapest man in the world.

So, Carlos buys the truck from Blasco, but his life doesn’t change as he had imagined. Almost immediately, the truck is stolen, and Carlos and Luis have to try to get it back while staying invisible.

A Better Life is a wonderful film.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”