Must See Movie...

good back-story, and good acting

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This story of attacks on Vietnamese immigrants on the Texas coast was loosely based on real events from 1979-81. Shang Pierce (Ed Harris) is a Vietnam vet who hates all non-white people and gets particularly riled when Southeast Asian immigrants begin arriving in his town, and especially when one of them develops a relationship with his girlfriend, Glory (Amy Madigan). The situation gets tenser and tenser as the movie progresses.Maybe "Alamo Bay" is not the greatest movie ever, but it certainly shows a part of Texas history (and indeed, US history) that unfortunately seems forgotten. Ed Harris looks like a typical redneck, with a short, wispy beard. It is the sort of movie that you should check out if you get a chance.

The movie is stilted and slow in today's terms but does give a fairly accurate historical representation of the struggle of the Vietnamese shrimpers versus the KKK in the early eighties. Morris Dees and the newly formed Southern Poverty Law Center came to Kemah and Seabrook to make sure the Klan did not become the ruling class in the Texas Bay Area. The actual story can be found at www.tolerance.org or the southern poverty law center site. Louis Malle (yes he was French) was a great director who was married to actress Candice Bergen. He died of cancer in the late nineties. The movie does show a fledgling actor, Ed Harris, who has gone on to make many successful movies. The script was written by the writer of "Silkwood" which was another docudrama. It is worth watching for the history alone. Shows the pain felt by the locals and the immigrants.

Blidness cannot exist when we acknowledge the existence of KKK, and this film is showing exactly this problem. I do not know whether this problem of KKK is solved yet, but I remember well the problems created by this racial organization during 60-70s, particularly against black people. In this film the problem is with highly efficient and hard-working fishermen from Vietnam, who came to US during the war in their country. Part of the local fishermen were simply against them and tried to prevent fishing by the Vietnamese, at the end this came to a confrontation between both parts. In fact the film does not give any sustainable solution at its end, the leader of the white opposing the Vietnamese (Ed Harris) is killed by his former girl friend (Amy Madigan). The French director Louis Malle goes straight away into the problem and confrontation without much preface in the plot of the film.

This film, like its director, was years ahead of its time. Before Mississippi Burning, Cry Freedom, and Rosewood solidified the cliches of the racism genre, Louis Malle delivered this authentic, effortless look at Vietnamese fisherman working off the gulf coast of Texas. No house burnings and lynchings need apply. Malle and his writer Alice Arlen pay such close attention to detail that the film pants with life in the hot Texas sun. The actors scarcely seem to be acting at all. It takes skill and courage to film an incendiary subject like this won with a level head and a compassion for all involved. Despite its route cinematic ending, this film's catch is bountiful.