Alamo Bay

I really enjoy this movie. I am normally a Horror buff, but there is a great ambiance of the Texas Gulf created. Not to mention wonderful character development. The story is about a young Vietnamese man (Ho Nguyen) who comes to Texas after the war for work. He ends up hitching a ride and begins work shrimping on the Gulf Coast of Texas. He is taken in by the Shrimp business owner's daughter (Amy Madigan). Everything is going well until the pressures of the immigrants over fishing drives Shang (Ed Harris) to lead the Ku Klux Klan to drive out the Vietnamese. The drama continues in a very REAL display. You will be able to find a VHS copy on Amazon or Ebay. This movie SHOULD be released on DVD.

Really glad I clicked on this from Amazon Prime. First time seeing it, and I was a movie watcher in 1985.

Luis Malle is a genius with camera placement and telling a story visually. The script is fine, not a gangbuster. The story is told in atmosphere, setting, and great shots.

The plot naturally develops a female hero, nothing fake or contrived.

The acting is fantastic. Luis M. Shot Ed Harris' piercing blue eyes, every chance he could get. Ed H as Shane is 300% convincing as a red-neck vet,his character is conflicted, but in the end understandable.

Is this film downgraded because there are no clear heroes?

More people should watch and review this fine film. It is better than 95% of what is pumped out of Hollywood as "product".

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.

I lived in the Rockport-Fulton area, where parts of the movie was filmed, most of my life. I remember when the Vietnamese people began moving into the area, and the problems they had with some of the local citizens. This movie was pretty accurate about the feelings of some of the shrimpers, I am sorry to say. Ed Harris did a wonderful job of portraying the racist shrimper. He reminds me of a few people I knew in the area. Amy Madigan was also great portraying his former girlfriend. She had some tough decisions to make. This is a good movie with interesting characters and great acting. I think that the relationship between some of the Texas shrimpers and the Vietnamese shrimpers is portrayed pretty realistically.

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.