In the opening moments of “Clika,” we are given a quick tour of Yuba City, Calif., just before dawn: its modest downtown, the smokestacks of its factories and the work already starting on its farms. They are emblems of this film’s clearly homegrown nature, a from-the-heart energy that animates its best qualities, if also its somewhat robotic construction.
Directed by Michael Greene, the movie follows Chito (JayDee, the real life frontman of the band Herencia de Patrones), a young Mexican American fieldworker who dreams of becoming a Música Mexicana star. But as his family’s generational home threatens to be foreclosed on, Chito begins trafficking marijuana with his uncle (Cristian Gutierrez, a.k.a. Concrete) and soon finds his hustle clashing with his artistic path.
One will quickly recognize it as a spin on underdog dreamer films like “8 Mile,” only instead of a rapper doing factory work in the Motor City, this centers on a migrant worker whose dreams are deferred by the drug game. And what this version glaringly sheds in its performances and direction is some of the sturdiness of a more traditional Hollywood production.
But that also matters less in a movie like this, one clearly made, with love and belief, by and for the people it centers: the strivers, the laborers and the generations that came after, many of whom are trying to hustle their way, messily or nobly, toward a kind of American dream.
Clika Rated R for drug content, language throughout and sexual material. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes. In theaters.
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