Las Picardias De Angulito El Mojado (1996)

Beginning in the late 1980’s and well-through the 1990’s, several low-budget Mexican filmmakers living in Los Angeles, CA had dominated the local home video market with their very own productions. These productions being low-budget as hell—hardly ever featured well-known names and consisted of mostly local talent in music & comedy. These talents were people that would perform in bars, nightclubs & all of the Mexican-community events going on. The most active filmmaker in this LA-based scene was Jorge Gomez, who was fortunate to not only work on his own & with locals, but had also got to work with famous Mexican talents as well. While guys like Jorge were doing well, others had not exactly reached that level, but they were putting in the effort anyways—even being associated with Jorge Gomez & his long-time collaborators. 

This is where a local filmmaker named Carlos A. Lopez steps in alongside a local comedian by the name of Luis Gil. In 1996, these 2 virtually unknown fellows made an intriguing film that was shot on video with the help of several local talents & even crew members of the East LA TV channel “Buena Vision” channel 6. And this film that was made was called Las Picardias De Angulito El Mojado (roughly translated as "The Mischievous Adventures of Angulito The Wetback").

Luis Gil plays “Angulito”, a drunken Mexican man who decides to cross over to the United States for a better life. At a dive bar in Tijuana, Angulito meets with a coyote who promises to cross him over, but he ends up being robbed & left in Tijuana still. Angulito then just decides to walk all the way to US and along the way he meets with “La India Anastacia” (Teresita Mendez), who is also walking over to the US on her own, but was assaulted along the way. Angulito then convinces Anastacia to go with him and they just barely manage to succeed after dealing with a bumbling border agent. Angulito & Anastacia end up in Los Angeles, but then go their separate ways which leads to them having various occupations & comedic miss-happenings. 

Angulito at first wanders the city as a homeless drunk, he then does acquire a variety of low-paying jobs in the city, but always ends up losing them. He then ends up living with a wealthy woman who he then robs, but his guilt gets the best of him and ends up donating his robberies to some poor children. Next up for Angulito—he pretends to be blind & begs for money in the streets which of course backfires. Angulito then becomes “Angulita”, a personal maid for a business woman. This of course doesn’t last long. From then on, Angulito becomes a high-level street gang leader and even a wrestler alongside Anastacia. 

I don’t remember how/when/where I got the VHS copy of Las Picardias De Angulito El Mojado from, but what a delightful treat that I’m glad I acquired. I expected something really bad honestly, but to my surprise this was very entertaining and actually humorous in the most silliest ways possible. Leading funny man Luis Gil is clearly not an experienced actor, but he brings his character of Angulito truly to life to the point where you actually root for the guy, despite being a complete dumbass at times. When he transforms into “Anguilta”, it is a bizarre but very humorous part of the movie since the transformation consists of the worst fake female voice & a dollar-bin Dorothy costume & cheap blonde wig. My 2 favorite parts for sure are when Angulito becomes a street gang leader by chance & a wrestler. He becomes these things literally by random. It’s truly fucking weird and very amazing. 

Aside from Angulito being the most peculiar & fascinating character ever, I was charmed by the mid-90’s South Central & East LA setting since we see those areas at its prime with many Mexican-owned businesses consisting of food & entertainment. The bar from the opening scene is “El Rinconcito”, a beloved dive bar in South Central that unfortunately closed its doors several years back. 

There’s a certain charm and a frustration when trying to find more information regarding a film, but you just have to go with what you can find & let it be, and that is the case with Las Picardias De Angulito El Mojado. I hope this review revives its interest and perhaps even uncover more of its origins & creators. Acorrding to the end credits, It appears a sequel was in the works, but again I found no further information on it. Did it even get made? God, I hope so.

Please contact me If you or anyone that knows the whereabouts & has more information on Luis Gil, Teresita Mendez, and Carlos A. Lopez.