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Chop Shop
Film Forum


7.0

based on 20 reviews
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How did we calculate this?

based on 3 votes
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FILM:

Man Push Cart

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Alejandro Polanco, and Isamar Gonzales

Alejandro spends his days in an adult world, running errands and convincing customers to come to his boss's garage instead of a competitor's garage. He's also learning how to paint and repair cars. Although conditions are harsh, his life is sprinkled with moments of happiness as he carves out a life for himself in the wasteland of the Iron Triangle. The brightest of these moments is the arrival of his sister Isamar, who moves in with him in the tiny room that he has found for them perched in the back of the shop where he works. Knowing that creating a better life for the two of them is their best bet at staying together, Alejandro finds her a job in a food van cooking and selling meals to the workers in the Iron Triangle. With a mixture of childlike naiveté and adult ambition, Alejandro begins obsessively saving his money to buy a mobile food van. The two dream about owning and running a small business of their own. But when their dream--as well as their loving relationship--is threatened by the hard truths of life, work, and one another, the children find themselves forced to make the kinds of difficult decisions that most adults never have to face. (Koch Lorber)

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Ramin Bahrani
DIRECTED BY:	Ramin Bahrani
RELEASE DATE:	Theatrical: February 27, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	84 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Now we have an American film with the raw power of “City of God” or “Pixote,” a film that does something unexpected, and inspired, and brave.

100

TV Guide Ken Fox

Bahrani's willingness to expose the shameful reality of third-world conditions in the Land of Plenty while telling a crackling good story marks him as a filmmaker as important as he is accessible.

100

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Beautifully observed, and beautifully acted by the novice thespian Polanco (culled from a New York City public school), Chop Shop is at once a heartbreaker and a story of hope and the American Dream.

Washington Post John Anderson

The director has created a not-to-miss gem for the discriminating viewer.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Announces the arrival of a director radically out of step with the dominant conventions of American moviemaking, one who blends a social-realist vision and a passion for cinematic poetry.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Ale's community is like a band of pirates - collegial, bickering, larcenous and supportive - and his life within it is both heartening and heartbreaking.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Small but sure, the film is like Alejandro himself: quick on its feet, attuned to a harsh life’s hardships and possibilities.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Everything about Chop Shop is modest - the movie's scale, the characters' ambitions. Another director might have tried to nudge the film's grim detours toward tragedy. And that might have worked, too. But Bahrani is a refreshingly deceptive director in that sense.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

It's like a New York City equivalent of a Third World bazaar: It hums with nerviness and cunning. And this movie presents a tingling vision of a working neighborhood after hours. Night falls in Chop Shop like a comfort, a cloak or a shroud.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Though Chop Shop is an American film, it feels more like an Iranian movie or the Dardenne Brothers’ "Rosetta"; Bahrani introduces something like a plot point in the late-going, but he mostly focuses, to riveting effect, on how his young hero hustles and claws through everyday life.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

Iranian-American filmmaker Ramin Bahrani has followed up his well-received Man Push Cart with another penetrating portrait of life on the outskirts of New York.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Bahrani’s concentration is close to supernatural as he tracks the young, prepubescent Ale (Alejandro Polanco) from job to soul-numbing job, some legal, some extralegal, to the point where you’re forced to suspend altogether your moral judgments and watch with a mixture of pain and awe.

Village Voice Nathan Lee

Authentic as all this feels (and smells, and tastes), Chop Shop gives off a heightened sense of reality, a faintly idealized atmosphere akin to the Lower East Side milieu of "Raising Victor Vargas," a close relative in the New York branch of neo-neorealism.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

There is nonetheless a lyricism at its heart, an unsentimental, soulful appreciation of the grace that resides in even the meanest struggle for survival.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

In this littered environment there's no such thing as trash, only salvage, and the biggest threat to the siblings' humanity is a creeping tendency to think of themselves as commodities as well.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Chop Shop"exudes a sense of joyousness amid harshness. Bahrani celebrates those who never give up, no matter how badly their dreams are shattered.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Bahrani's unsentimental film is perhaps most interesting as a look at a colorful, little-known world that has recently been targeted for urban renewal.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Ultimately, the pic will be noted and remembered not for any inherent drama or analysis but for its simply having so thoroughly documented a strange place most people have never seen and never knew existed.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

As he did in his striking 2005 first feature film, "Man Push Cart," about a Pakistani street vendor in New York, perceptive indie filmmaker Ramin Bahrani looks at what others overlook and finds drama in everyday details.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

It is ironic that the core audience for Chop Shop is that very crowd that has recently taken steps to redevelop the Iron Triangle into something more Manhattan-friendly.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Nick M. gave it a4:
Bahrani's portrayal of the Bronx and urban life is amazing, but there's too much lacking to make it a successful story. The actors feel young and palpably directed, and the plot lumps along until the end, missing on what should be its climax. A documentary treatment of the Bronx would have been as vivid, and come off with more authenticity in characters. No seriously.

Paul K. gave it a7:
This movie is probably more like a 6.5, but I was feeling a little generous tonight. There's a lot to like about Chop Shop, especially the acting and grittiness of the cinematography. Ultimately though, I felt like the characters needed more development. Maybe more back story or more insight into the relationship of Alejandro and Isamar? Either way, I needed to care more about them and to understand more about the world in which they struggle to live in. The minimal feel of the movie works, but a more substantial ending would have been a nice counterbalance to the slow, introspective pace. Good, not great.

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