This recurring feature at the Criticker Blog has tended to focus on decades-old European flicks, for some reason, so this time we’re going to visit present day NYC and look at a great movie from last year that didn’t get nearly enough press: Chop Shop.

The movie is about a young street orphan in New York City and his older sister, who live (or: survive) together in huge auto parts & repairs stores. Young Ale is headstrong and entrepreneurial, making decisions and sacrifices for his more subdued sister Isamar. His dream is to buy a van, in order to sell hot meals to chop shop workers.

Chop Shop is screenwriter/director Ramin Bahrani‘s second feature, and he tells Ale’s story without indulging in the sentimentality that ruins most “hard-knock life” movies. This is also his second film, after the similarly-praised Man Push Cart, to deal with America’s “invisible people” — those who exist on the edge of society. Bahrani’s films feel authentic… like filmed slices of life. This owes as much to his hand-held camera work, as to the fact that both of the main actors in Chop Shop (who share their real names with their characters) are non-professional.

Ale & Isamar

Neglected Gems are those films at Criticker that not many users have seen, but which are ranked overwhelmingly positively by those who have. Help get Chop Shop out of this category… it’s definitely a film that doesn’t deserve neglect.