‘Eastside’s’ Star and Heart Overcome Small Budget

“Eastside” is a well-made melodrama, full of smarts and lots of heart, that shows that Mario Lopez, who played Greg Louganis in the Olympic diving champ’s television bio, is ready for the big screen. He’s good-looking and charismatic, with a star’s effortless command of attention.

Lopez plays Antonio, who’s celebrating his 21st birthday as he ends a two-year sentence at Folsom (for getting caught working in a chop shop). He’s used his prison time to study the workings of the stock market and, back in L.A., heads for the posh law offices of his upwardly mobile older brother Horatio (Mark D. Espinoza), who is not exactly glad to see him.

Antonio, however, has a terrier tenacity and winds up following Horatio to a night club, where Antonio’s quick thinking saves the proprietor (Efrain Figueroa) from an assassin’s bullet.

In an instant, Antonio discovers that Horatio is a fraud in thrall to Figueroa’s Armando de la Rosa, an underworld kingpin. In no time, Antonio, who has an amoral attitude toward success, becomes De la Rosa’s fair-haired boy, a terrific problem-solver and tough enforcer.

When Horatio fails to persuade the owner of an East L.A. youth center to sell his property, coveted by the never-seen Mr. Big to whom De la Rosa answers, Antonio is dispatched to do the job in his brother’s place.

Up to this point, “Eastside,” written by Eric Sherman and directed by Lorena David with admirable crispness on the part of both, unfolds as a traditional gangster picture. But when Antonio comes up against Richard Lynch’s Mihalas Gabriel, some deft foreshadowing comes into play, suggesting that both brothers have much potential good in them.

‘Eastside’

Mario Lopez: Antonio Lopez

Elizabeth Bogush: Claire Gabriel

Mark D. Espinoza: Horatio Lopez

Efrain Figueroa: Armando de la Rosa

Richard Lynch: Mihalas Gabriel

A Hollywood Independents/Candlelight Films presentation of a Kingsize Entertainment production. Director Lorena David. Producer Mark Roberts. Executive producer Ravi Chopra. Screenplay Eric P. Sherman. Cinematographer Lisa Wiegand. Editor Edward Kerwin. Music Armando Avila. Costumes Luellen Harper Thomas. Production designer Clare Brown. Art director Will Stewart. Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes.

Exclusively at the Grande 4-Plex, 345 S. Figueroa St., downtown Los Angeles, (213) 617-0268.

“Eastside” is a fine example of what can be accomplished in a low-budget genre with imagination and dedication. It’s sharp, fast and energetic yet has depth, dimension and wit. Performances are on target right down the line; Lisa Wiegand’s cinematography is uncluttered yet expressive, and Lopez, like the movie, is a winner.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: some violence.