On Gun Hill Road Lives a Family on a Hair Trigger
An ex-con grapples with his transgendered teen in the amateur but well-acted film.
By Rex Reed 8/02 7:33pm
http://www.observer.com/2011/08/on-gun-hill-road-lives-a-family-on-a-hair-trigger/Movies about transgendered Latinos are not exactly on the menu every week, so the attention paid to Gun Hill Road is understandable. It's a flawed but interesting debut by writer-director Rashaad Ernesto Green, who says he based it on his own family, without further explanation. I shudder to think.
After three years in prison for grand larceny, arms possession and selling drugs, Enrique Rodriguez, played by the riveting actor Esai Morales (La Bamba), returns to his old neighborhood in the multiracial Gun Hill Road section of the Bronx to start a new life and correct his past mistakes, only to find his whole world distorted and in ashes. His long-suffering wife, Angie (Judy Reyes), has, in his absence, been having an affair with another man, and his teenage son, Michael (newcomer Harmony Santana), has been planning a sex change while living a double life as a drag queen called Vanessa. Enrique loves his family, but finds it impossible to adjust to these violent changes and simultaneously focus on his parole officer's warning: "Secure gainful employment or go back behind bars."
