The movie American Me, which I watched fairly recently has a good solid three act structure. The story is about a young Mexican American named Montoya Santana and his life growing up in prison and then afterward when he is released. The acts are divided like so; Act 1: Montoya's life from birth and then in prison, Act 2: after Montoya has been released from prison and tries to sell drugs to make a living, and Act 3: after several people overdose on drugs, eventually Montoya is arrested again.
The first act begins by introducing Montoya. He is a young Mexican American who was the product of a brutal rape that was shown in this first act. Years later Montoya forms a gang with his friends, but they are soon arrested for breaking and entering. They spend the rest of their lives in Juvenal Hall, and then fifteen more years in prison. While in prison they join a large gang that is run by Montoya, and they begin selling drugs in jail. Eventually their gang starts to become divided and Montoya tells a new recruit to kill the other gangs leader to prove a point. This is the first major plot point of the film. Once the recruit kills this other man the story escalates into the next act. The first act introduces Montoya's gang and suggests that the gang might split up, and at the end we Montoya kills the man trying to split the gang to prove a point. But did his actions really stop this division? In the second act right after the recruit kills that man, Montoya is let out of prison. Once he is let out he is introduced to the drug world outside the prison. He resolves to sell drugs for a living on the outside. While he is doing this he learns how much things have changed while he was in prison. He is also introduced to his love interest of the movie, Julie. The two of them go through a romantic montage of sorts, but meanwhile in the prison things are not going so smoothly with their gang. The gang begins acting on their own and start to divide once again. They rape the son of a prominent drug lord that is competing with Montoya's gang. In retaliation the drug lord sends out pure uncut heroine to the Mexican community and over 30 die. One of which was the younger brother of Julie, who finds out that it was because of Montoya's gang that the rival gang retaliated and let these drugs out. She leaves Montoya, and all he has left is his gang once again. This act ends with the death of Julie's little brother, and afterward at the funeral. From this the film transitions into it's final act. Where Montoya learns of the rape of his mother and starts to questions his actions in the gang.
In the final act Montoya is told by his father that he is a bastard child and the result of a rape. After this the recruit from earlier is released and marries. Montoya attends the wedding and gives the recruit cocain as a gift. However Montoya is eventually caught by the police and is sent back to prison. Thus the climax begins as the gang decides now to kill the recruit for getting Montoya in prison. Montoya tells them to forget about it and not kill him, but they set it up anyway. In this final act the gang goes against Montoya and kill the recruit using his own brother. The recruit is killed, Montoya is stabbed to death by the new leader of the gang, and several kids begin to set the cycle in motion again by forming their own small gang. The climax ends with Montoya and the recruit dead, and the gang starts over with a new leader.
American Me wasn't the best movie, but it did have a solid three act structure and followed the formula well. Each act escalated the stakes, transitioned into the next, and implied complications for the rest of the film. If you want a recommendation for this film however I say no, but I'll let you watch it on your own and develop an opinion. After all it wasn't that bad, just really slow.
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