Boricua's Bond

First, the good news. This passionately felt, ultimately depressing, neo-realist look at the cultural dislocation implicit in being the only white kid in a dangerous part of the South Bronx is a pretty amazing accomplishment for writer/director/co-star Val Lik, all of 20 at the time he filmed it. The bad news: It's also the work of someone whose hard-won street smarts don't preclude melodramatic moments only a 20-year-old could take seriously. The plot, episodic (and we're told loosely autobiographical) centers around Tommy (Frankie Negron), a sensitive Puerto Rican kid whose artistic talent may be his ticket out of the neighborhood, and Allen (Lik), a white kid wh...