Set in the Bronx, Savage Roses, directed by James Tucker and written by Joshua Nelson, is about a hardened Latina gang member, Toro (Misha Gonzales), who begins to rethink her future for the first time when she falls in love with a young mother, Michelle (Tania Galarza), who is in an emotionally and occasionally physically abusive relationship with a local thug, Pedro (Nelson).

Toro's fellow gang members and Michelle's boyfriend are predictably resistant to the changes wrought by the two women's relationship, and the routine violence in which they engage or encounter serves as a backdrop to Toro and Michelle's love story.

Ultimately, Toro and Michelle are both forced to make a decision about their commitment to each other, which leads to tragic results.

The acting is the film is fairly good overall, with Gonzales and Galarza especially convincing as the two star-crossed lovers--even with occasionally stilted dialogue, the two women generate a warmth and believability that is appealing. The characters who make up Toro's gang are interesting and the actors mostly do a good job with their roles, but the movie would have benefited from a little more editing since some of the gang scenes stretch on a little long.

Some of the dialogue smacks of trying a little too hard to be authentic street slang, and sometimes overlaps to the point of being unintelligible. The ending is a little too predictable, but the movie does a good job of building the dramatic tension.

Unfortunately, the film's good qualities are almost completely overshadowed by the production quality of the film, which is so poor it renders the film almost unwatchable. The fact that the film is shot on digital video makes the film quality good, but gives it a home-movie feel that is distracting at times, and the occasional shaky camera shots don't help.

But the real problem is the sound quality: it literally ricochets up and down within a single scene, as you strain to hear the dialogue one moment and then are blasted back into your seat by the sound of a passing train the next. By the time the movie is finished, you find yourself exhausted from the effort of trying to keep up.

There have been almost no films that have explored the topic of lesbian love in a Latina gang setting, and Nelson should be commended for at least getting the heart of it right, which is probably the reason the film was accepted into the New York and San Francisco gay and lesbian film festivals (the script for Savage Roses is based on an off-Broadway play Nelson wrote in 2001).

As a stand-alone film, the production quality of Savage Roses makes it barely worth watching, but the film does succeed as a showcase and launching pad for some of the actors (this is the first feature film for most of them). While hard-core film enthusiasts may find Savage Roses interesting for the occasional moments of brilliance and a glimpse of what the movie could have been, average lesbian and bisexual moviegoers are unlikely to find it worth the effort.