First of all it is hard to make a great movie about a star who was only in the public eye for such a short time. This film did a good job of filling in the gaps in that story. Richie Valens could have been a huge Rock & Roll star. To lose him and Buddy Holly on the same night was truly horrible. I remember when it happened when I was a kid and loving the new music Rock & Roll. A huge loss to the music world.

Typical for this genre.

Solid Rock and Roll Biopic that felt like a pretty accurate depiction of its era (not that I was there or anything).

Great movie..

2 and a half stars. Just not my type of movie.

Very good cast and fine premise for the recent musical movies. It is quite a classic for most savvy rock fans to enjoy and it is quite the stuff to see such minorites (other than blacks) rise to such prominence.

I enjoyed this movie about the life of Richie Valens. I don't have any idea how accurate this movie was but I enjoyed it. I thought Esai Morales stole the show as Valens half brother.

labamba was a musical?...since when!

Interesting premise, but weak script, aimless direction and Lou Diamond Phillips in the lead role. Difficult to make a horse run with three broken legs.

One of the best films.

I really enjoyed this movie. Having been boring in the 1980s, I of course, wasn't alive in the times of Richie Valens, but I enjoy seeing a film which traced his roots. Lou Diamond Phillips did a great job at bringing Richie back to life, and the rest of the cast did a great job as well. A lot of great music! It's so sad that Richie's life was cut so tragically short.

It wasn't all that. I like the Los Lobos' covers though.

I love Ritchie Valens and Lou Diamond Phillips did a great job playing him.

umn trying to find 2 soungs from this movie ok toward then end when buddy holly is singing in the club when richey is on the phone what soung is that. Then when the man on the radio says they 3 rockstars died then plays a soung what soung is it.

Richie Valens deserved a movie. That kid was mucho talented and he was going to go far with Buddy Holly producing him(read Ellis Amburn's "Buddy Holly: a biography". Now, someone has got to make an Eddie Cochran movie!

La Bamba is a wonderfully casted movie, but also way too sad to watch more than one time. Lou Diamond Phillips is a rock star through and through. Anybody into rock and roll history should love this film.

Used to sing this song all the time strumming on an air guitar pretending I was Lou Diamond Phillips. Having heard this song all during my childhood it was amazing to see it come to life in a movie.

It's a great movie. It shows you the innocence of that time. You see Richie grow up and the hardships of his family. You gain a great understanding of his life, his family, his music. It's a touching movie about a great musician. If anyone loves "Donna" this is a must see movie.

I thought this movie was a great representation of how difficult it is to make it "big" from nothing, and how culture clashes with "getting out" and being a pop star. The movie is very entertaining and the music, of course, is wonderful.

Tragic tale of a young, attractive rock stars death. Sadness will overcome you as you feel devistation of the loss of such a young hunk. Guide to young rock stars of today.

Unfortunately the movie just stereotyped the minorities. The singing was great and showed Ritchie's talent for songwriting. Sad to see such people living in poverty. You will wish they all had this opportunity.

The life events based on Ricky Valenz. This story interviews his family life, his sweetheart Donna, and how he makes his big break. As a viewer, one really fels apart of Ricky's life.

Lou Diamond Phillips does a wonderful job portraying the all too short life of Ritchie Valens. This movie is right up there with the Buddy Holly Story in which Gary Busey plays the lead roll. The actor who plays Bob Ritchie's brother does a good job too.

I only rated La Bamba a measley 3 because it had weak character development and the continuity between plot and sub plot could have been stronger. Although the music of Richie Valens is great and Diamond Phillips does a good job at making the character real, there was very little development in the story supporting characters. I think that if you're going to do a movie about a "real" person you have to bring all of that person's life to the screen and make it believable.

"La Bamba" is a great music movie. It's a fun movie to watch which depicts Richie Valentines career and life well. I like the way they had actors portraying the parts of other famous musicians Richie interacted with. The music in the movie was great.

This is a well-done film (I don't know enough about Ritchi Valens to know how accurate the film is). Lou Diamond Phillips is great as Ritchie as is Esai Morales who plays his tormented brother. I'm a big fan of 50s era music and this did a good job of bringing a lot of it back into the public eye.

It is an old song/movie but it's great

I thought the movie La Bamba was a good movie. I like autobiographies.