Walkout tells the story of a pivotal event in the history of Latino-Americans, when Chicano students at five Los Angeles high schools staged a walkout in March of 1968. Led by a charismatic teacher, the young people railed against a school system that treated their predominantly Latino schools as second-class institutions producing janitors and sanitation workers. Earnest and slickly produced, this 2006 HBO movie chronicles an important, but little-known, protest. While the movie scores on good intentions, it can't entirely shake the confines of a made-for-TV flick and all that it entails.

Actor Edward James Olmos (Stand and Deliver) takes on directorial duties here, relating the incident from the perspective of straightarrow honors student Paula Crisotomo (Alexa Vega) and her rising social consciousness over the conditions of her school. Latino students are paddled for speaking Spanish in class. Bathrooms are locked during lunch hour because they're not sufficiently "respected" by the students.

Paula and her classmates are spurred into action after they attend a conference for young Chicanos organized by idealistic teacher Sal Castro (Michael Peña). Discontent among the students escalates when their grievances are ignored by the L.A. school board. Subsequently, Chicano students coordinate a district-wide walkout, but things get out of hand by the second day -- when LAPD overreacts and subjects the kids to merciless beatings.

Walkout is engrossing enough, but it never successfully stretches beyond the conceit that this is chiefly a history lesson that's good for you. Olmos and his trio of writers (Marcus DeLeon, Ernie Contreras and Timothy J. Sexton) don't dig past superficialities in detailing their characters' lives and culture.

Sal Castro might rattle off some factoids about the plight of Chicanos at that time -- one of four Mexican-Americans would graduate high school; a scant 2 percent of them making it into college -- but little is done to effectively dramatize the real and stifling impact of day-to-day discrimination. Instead, Walkout defers to speechifying and cliché. The tension between Paula and her old-school father (Yancey Arias) feels especially hackneyed. For a subplot we've seen in literally thousands of movies, precious little is done to enliven it.

The acting is good, with the ever-reliable Peña a standout as the crusading teacher. Nevertheless, Walkout undermines its own impact at its end, when we see and hear from the actual men and women who led the uprising. When you hear the real Sal Castro get choked with emotion, you begin to understand just what a lost opportunity that Walkout really is.

Presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, the picture quality is clean and crisp, without noticeable defects such as edge enhancement, smearing, combing or other artifacts. Skin tones are realistic.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 is modest but gets the job done for this dialogue-driven movie. A 2.0 track is available in Spanish and French. Subtitles are in English, Spanish and French.

It's uncertain why there are three separate commentary tracks, but indeed they are split between Olmos and executive producer Moctesuma Esparza (who participated in the '68 walkout); writers DeLeon and Contreras; and, finally, Timothy Sexton soloing it. All three are reasonably informative, although Sexton provides insight into explaining why the screenwriters made certain narrative decisions.

Earnest, well-intentioned and ultimately too pat for its own good, Walkout never quite rises to the importance of its own material.