Just finished watching Chop Shop (2007) on DVD.

Written and directed by young Iranian-American filmmaker Ramin Bahrani with a cast of ‘non-actors,’ the 84-minute-long Chop Shop is a nice movie centering around a young boy Alejandro (Alejandro Polanco) working in an auto repair shop in Queens, New York.

Displaying a maturity beyond his years, the 12-year-old kid cheers up when his sister Isamar (Isamar Gonzales) comes to live with him in a tiny room above the repair shop.

The movie, which has a documentary-ish feel,  follows the duo’s dreary lives, the hopes, disappointments and all, as they yearn to make a better life for themselves by buying a small food van.

What stand out in this low-budget movie are the tight screenplay, fine acting by the endearing Alejandro and a very realistic story and setting (important for those of us tired of the bizarre Bollywood fantasies or the Kollywood crap-shows).

Oh, we almost forgot. Chop Shop is co-produced by a desi – Pradip Ghosh.

We doubt Chop Shop ever made it to India. If you live in the U.S., you can get the Chop Shop DVD from Netflix or maybe even your local public library (we got ours from the local library).

The movie is also available on Netflix’ Instant Play if you have the Roku or one of the other boxes that let you stream movies instantly from Netflix.

By the way, Ramin Bahrani’s latest movie Goodbye Solo debuted a few weeks back in the U.S. No, we haven’t seen it but plan to.