just watch it!

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Crips and Bloods: Made in America (2008)*** 1/2 (out of 4) Director Stacy Peralta does a very good job covering the brutal and deadly battle between rival L.A. gangs the Crips and the Bloods. This documentary looks at why the two sides took off in popularity and what is being done to try and stop the violence.I thought this was an extremely well-balanced documentary that gave an open and honest look at the subject. We're given quite a bit of history on racism and how South Central L.A. ended up turning into a ghetto when you've got so much rich things surrounding it. The documentary did a great job at covering the rise of the two gangs as well as all the violence that would follow. The issue of poverty and what that plays into is also reviewed.We get some great interviews with members of both gangs as well as family members who have had loved ones lost to the violence. Forest Whitaker does a very good job with the narration and adds a classy touch to the entire thing.

To understand how certain groups of individuals work on a very personal level, one must get into the field and experience it for themselves. However, there are some places that filmmakers would not go very often. These places are the fighting grounds between the Bloods and the Crips. But what's astounding enough is that director Stacy Peralta is able to get under the skin of these two gangs and dig up as much personal information as she can.At beginning of this documentary, viewers will see the progression of how the Crips and the Bloods came to be today and how the mindset of the older generation changed in the ones who came after them. No stone is left unturned here. Even more surprising is how the people who lived through that time tell this story! The audience will not receive a second hand story...they will receive,..the truth because this comes from the people who experienced it.And the most riveting thing that one will see is actual interviews with Crip and Blood members; current and retired. They tell it how it is and what people should expect if someone walks through their neighborhood and what is being done to correct this problem. I'm curious to even if the producers themselves felt uncomfortable doing this movie. I sure would,...to most, it's the ticket straight to death's door. Not many people are willing to go so easily. It takes a lot of courage. And the most ironic thing about this film is its title and that's because it's true.All will be revealed in this very serious and yet careful documentary. Once people understand what goes on there, this situation should hopefully dissolve.

This was a superior movie. All gang members should watch it and see that what they're fighting for is nothing. This movie was an eyeopener and was very educational. It is sad that people are killing in and destroying their own neighborhoods. All of the years of fighting should have proved by now that nothing is gained with these deaths. The only hope is that the mothers only give birth to girls from here on and the females in these environments wise up and straighten things up. This fighting is not for honor or family. It is a testosterone battle that on one is winning. It is so sad that it takes the accidental murder of innocent children to open the gangs eyes, if only for a while. The government needs to implement something that will give these young men some pride and something to work toward besides daily survival. I was very moved by this movie.

What's up with those Crips and Bloods? Can't they, like, just get along and, like, not kill each other? Why do they do that? Well, because they're the product of decades of segregation and isolation into under-developed, falling-apart communities that are treated as virtual No Man Lands within the very city of LA. How did this happen? Well, it some of it can be traced back all the way to World War I.....Stacy Peralta's "Crips and Bloods: Made in America" starts out with some pretty stunning information. More people have died in gang battles between the blue and the red than in some third world events we in the first world label "genocide." Many of the citizens of the areas the Crips and Bloods inhabit have lived their entire lives without seeing the Pacific Ocean due to the invisible barriers that separate them from the world. These factoids are inserted in many compelling ways in a documentary that tries, with variable success, to really present the core of the issues of these gangs running around in South Central.The idea is good, the execution is a little off. Despite the title of the movie, the genesis of the actual gangs is passed by in a quick and uninformative way while more focus is put onto the history of the area itself and its relations to civil rights. That's not too big of a deal, but over-stylized digital effects and a constantly moving camera attempt to make what is a real social issue into something more resembling a hip-hop or skater video. I think the attempt was largely to put more animation into what is otherwise a lot of still photography and talking heads, but sometimes it can get distracting and a lot of the meat of the documentary has to compete with this weird tendency in the editing to intercut with sped-up montages. The more effective parts are the parts where you can hear the director interviewing. I think the best scene is when Peralta asks, "Well, what about morality?" and his interviewee basically says, "We have to put morals behind us just to survive." It's easy from an outside perspective to believe that the gang problem is an issue of a community of people being irresponsible and stupid, but it's harder to understand how the problem was developed from decades of negligence.I think, for all the flash, that this movie has some good ideas and decent journalism, but needed a bit more research and a better plan of execution. Ultimately, it's a very glossy rough draft of a video essay, and some more information is needed. At least it has an optimistic conclusion with an idea of how things could be turned around, which is something most social documentaries evade and need more of.--PolarisDiB