LA Originals review – flat doc lacks rebel energy of its subject matter

Beware of any documentary whose opening credits reveal that its subject also happens to be its director. It threatens myopia and self-indulgence, and LA Originals, unfortunately, falls into this trap. Though it does have some keen insights into an under-appreciated culture, as well as swathes of fascinating archive footage of what it was like to be backstage during the ‘90s rap scene, Estevan Oriol’s autobiographical doc is simply too lethargic to stay interesting.

LA Originals follows Oriol’s rise to prominence in LA culture, first as a tour manager for Cypress Hill, and then as a photographer of great renown, working with rappers, actors, and LA’s homeless community to create iconic snapshots of the city. Alongside Oriol the whole way is his best friend and artistic partner, tattoo artist Mr Cartoon, another LA legend who has inked everyone from Snoop Dogg to Christina Aguilera to the late Kobe Bryant. United by their Chicano heritage and bone-deep understanding of their home city, the pair are enormously talented and influential, but this rundown of their lives is strangely straightforward, not capturing the rebel energy present in their art.

LA Originals moves very steadily, capturing one year at a time in linear fashion and explaining how life changed for Oriol and Cartoon in that particular year. It’s an approach that is informative but unexciting, and the attempts to broaden the scope through archival news footage only serve to highlight how stylistically unambitious the documentary is. It’s told mostly through talking heads and voiceovers set to montages of Oriol’s photography, rarely justifying its feature length.

Things lift up whenever Oriol’s backstage footage takes us on tour with the rappers he and Cartoon worked with. Artists like 50 Cent and Xzibit bring real character to proceedings, and Oriol has an incredible knack for immersing audiences in the oddness of life on the road. It’s just a shame this energy isn’t kept up for the sequences back in Los Angeles. As an ode to the Latino, particularly Mexican, influence on the culture of the city, it’s important, and its study of how Chicano art has been ignored and, later, appropriated without adequate credit to its originators makes some fiery points.

Yet in its desire to cover this cultural battleground, Oriol and Cartoon’s life in the music scene, some family history, a litany of celebrity endorsements, and the wider political forces that shape Los Angeles, LA Originals has no one compelling hook. It needed more time to give adequate attention to each element, but even at 90 minutes, it’s pretty boring, leaving it trapped between good intentions and formal dullness.

LA Originals is also nakedly self-promotional, with a lot of scenes centring on some kind of poster quote for Oriol and Cartoon’s studio. If you’re going to take an hour and a half to sell an audience something, the advert better be more exciting than this.

LA Originals is now streaming on Netflix.