The title of this movie is slightly misleading. It is actually a low budget drama about a sliver of life in the Barrio. Don't expect to see an organized gang of thugs that are terrorizing the neighborhood, and running roughshod over anyone who gets in their way. Don't expect a plot that involves a turf war over who gets permission to sell drugs in the neighborhood. Also don't expect to see any 300 round-a-minute shootouts. Don't expect any butt-naked love scenes in Blood & Tears. In this movie you don't see any clubs that are fronts to hide the profits of crime bosses.If any of the above is your idea of entertainment you will be very disappointed. There is hardly any of the fluff (other than a hip-hop soundtrack) that is normally part of many big studio crime dramas to distract the viewer from the focus of the story.
What you will find is a main character who has to choose between avenging the death of a companion and raising the family that had to do without him during his nine year stint in the Big House. As you will see almost any group of non-whites can be labeled as a gang by mass media. In this urban narrative a few aquaintnces settle their differences with guns. After every scene the picture fades to black as if the closing credits are about to roll. But you'll know when the story is over. The bulk of the movie is profanity filled dialogue with the action occuring once in a while and coming in very short spurts of quick kills.
Blood & Tears looks like a symptom of a fatherless America. Mothers express their concern mainly through nurturing and compassion. While fathers do so through setting rules for their offspring; so they can develop discipline and become productive members of their communities. But when there is no father in the home, and mommy has to be away working, the male child often will seek and find masculine leadership on the street. The result: their only idea of structure is to watch your homeies backs to make sure they stay one step ahead of the law, and not get taken out by a rival crew. Their only concept of manhood lies in their ability to avenge their homey's death and not in their ability to properly raise their children. In fact how will they learn how to be an effective parent if the father is not around, or if the father is in a gang himself?
Even though Blood & Tears is void of a lot of the sensationalism of other "Hood" movies it only scratches the surface of a major survival issue in the barrio. Violence doesn't have to be about: ten square feet of territory,or about what posse gets to distribute illegal narcotics. Sometimes it merely involves an altercation between aquaintances that separate into cliques. Even though turf and dope is not involved, the killings still create problems for law enforcement. The killings still make low-income areas unsafe.
Blood & Tears starts out slow, but picks up when all of the characters involved come together. It shows how someone can get caught up in a cycle of revenge when no one was shown that there is life outside the barrio. But even if you come from the middle or upper-class suburbs you can see the adverse effect of not having an effective father.
