Crips and Bloods: Made in America

Crips and Bloods hasn't been made out of moral anger or a sense of conspiracy. As matters of journalism, sociology, and humanitarianism, the movie is incurious at best. At worst, it's a recruitment video.

Peralta is a compassionate filmmaker.

Deals almost entirely in known facts, but it's still a revelatory film.

The movie feels less like a traditional documentary than an educational video. But it works the way he wants it to: you'll walk out feeling both enlightened and dismayed.

With Crips and Bloods: Made in America, the director Stacy Peralta manages to put a human face on a subject that tends to inspire inflamed debate.

The self-perpetuating cycle of hopelessness, ignorance and poverty is certainly a depressing spectacle. But it's not a very revelatory one.

Stacy Peralta's insider glimpse at the lives of LA gangs is a genuine shocker.

The film works best as a history lesson of the L.A. black experience, arguing that economic neglect, institutional racism and covert government operations fueled the 1965 and 1992 riots and created the leadership vacuum in which gangs took root.

Stacy Peralta's visual style and sense of storytelling when applied to a weightier subject than surfing or skating actually works surprisingly well.

Don't miss this.

Stacy Peralta's documentary traces the emergence of gangs in L.A., as well as their contexts and causes.

A solid picture that leaves much for discussion, Crips and Bloods maps the paths, even if it leaves some lots vacant along the way.