Clika: Mexican American fieldworker pursues Música Mexicana dream

Clika, directed by Michael Greene, follows Chito, a young Mexican American fieldworker in Yuba City, Calif., who dreams of becoming a Música Mexicana star. Chito is played by JayDee, the real-life frontman of the band Herencia de Patrones.

The film opens with a quick tour of Yuba City just before dawn—its modest downtown, factory smokestacks and work beginning on the farms—elements the review calls emblematic of the movie’s homegrown nature. As his family’s generational home faces possible foreclosure, Chito begins trafficking marijuana with his uncle (Cristian Gutierrez, a.k.a. Concrete), and his hustle increasingly clashes with his artistic path.

Brandon Yu’s review frames Clika as a Mexican American take on underdog dreamer films like 8 Mile, noting that, unlike a Hollywood production, the movie “glares” in shedding some sturdiness in its performances and direction. He also writes that a from-the-heart energy animates the film’s best qualities and that it feels made by and for the strivers and laborers it centers, despite what he calls a somewhat robotic construction.

The film is rated R for drug content, language throughout and sexual material, runs 1 hour 22 minutes, and is in theaters.

Key Topics

Culture, Clika, Yuba City, Michael Greene, Jaydee, Cristian Gutierrez