Movie Review

Chop Shop (2008)

EW's GRADE
B-

Details Limited Release: Feb 29, 2008; Rated: R; Length: 105 Minutes; Genre: Drama; With: Darlan Cunha and Douglas Silva

Chop Shop
Image credit: Jon Higgins

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. Set in a bleak junkyard cor¬ner of Queens, where ''auto-body repair'' is indistinguishable from auto-part theft, this gentle drama of getting by in a harsh city jungle features a 12-year-old Latino orphan (Alejandro Polanco) who already knows something about the working world, and his older sister (Isamar Gonzales), who doesn't yet. B+

Originally posted Feb 26, 2008 Published in issue #981 Mar 07, 2008 Order article reprints
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