The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
 
Features  |  Reviews
Best2012Vote-1000x50

El cantante

Cookie-cutter bombast
By BETSY SHERMAN  |  August 1, 2007
2.0 2.0 Stars

VIDEO: Watch the trailer for El cantante.

Until the upcoming satire Walk Hard blows the musical-bio-pic genre into tatters, we’ll have to put up with cookie-cutter bombast like El cantante, a warts-and-all tribute to salsa star Hector Lavoe (Marc Anthony), the Puerto Rican singer who ignited New York’s Latin-music boom of the ’70s and ’80s, became addicted to heroin, and died from AIDS. Puchi (Jennifer Lopez, Anthony’s real-life spouse), Lavoe’s wife and a combative firecracker, tells the couple’s story, which fluctuates from the joy of Hector’s music to the misery caused by his inability to cope with responsibility. Her voiceover often states the obvious, and director Leon Ichaso uses that edgy-gritty-ugly DV style that really isn’t edgy anymore. But as an actor and a singer, Anthony excels. Unlike Lopez, he digs beneath the soap-opera dialogue and bares his character’s soul.
Related: The Yacoubian Building, La Mujer de mi Hermano, Where everything is meant to be seen, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Celebrity News, Entertainment, Media,  More more >
| More

 Friends' Activity   Popular   Most Viewed 
[ 02/14 ]   The Addams Family  @ Shubert Theatre
[ 02/14 ]   "Aphrodite and the Gods of Love"  @ Museum of Fine Arts
[ 02/14 ]   "Processes and Dreams"  @ Panopticon Gallery
ARTICLES BY BETSY SHERMAN
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   REVIEW: CHARLOTTE RAMPLING: THE LOOK  |  January 31, 2012
    Rampling's physical gifts, unimpeded by plastic surgery in their march through time, are matched by a keen mind and an unapologetic approach to life and work.
  •   REVIEW: THE GREY  |  January 26, 2012
    At the center of this superior stranded-men-picked-off-by-external-threat thriller is Ottway, an anguished loner powerfully played by Liam Neeson.
  •   REVIEW: RED TAILS  |  January 24, 2012
    With a title that refers not to squirrels but to plane markings, Red Tails dramatizes the struggles and triumphs of African-American pioneers, the Tuskegee Airmen.
  •   REVIEW: THE ARTIST  |  December 20, 2011
    The advent of talking pictures sends a screen idol into both a career nosedive and an identity crisis in Michel Hazanavicius's flashback to Hollywood's transitional period of the late '20s.
  •   REVIEW: LIKE CRAZY  |  November 01, 2011
    Like Crazy is hooked onto a series of plot points — the bureaucratic hassles wrought by Londoner Anna's impulsive decision to overstay her student visa so she can remain in LA with boyfriend Jacob — yet it's quintessentially character-driven.

 See all articles by: BETSY SHERMAN

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed