MOVIE REVIEW: 'El Cantante'


Movie review in the Friday, Aug. 3 Oregonian....




If you didn't know Héctor Lavoe was a pioneering singer in New York's '70s and '80s salsa scene, it would be hard to glean it from "El Cantante" -- a tepid biopic that relentlessly scratches the surface, focusing on Lavoe (Marc Anthony) partying too hard and bickering with his wife (Jennifer Lopez).

Lopez and Anthony are game (though Anthony never quite tears into the role) -- but they're betrayed by an incoherent script and direction. Cowriter/director Leon Ichaso tries to convey Lavoe's complexity by cycling through shallow scenes from the biopic-cliché handbook:

1. Lavoe, stoned out of his mind;
2. Lavoe, singing to fawning crowds;
3. Lavoe, hugging people at parties where the collars are as wide as the coke-lines are long;
4. Lavoe, fighting with his wife;
5. Lavoe, suddenly in home-movie connubial bliss with the same woman.

But nothing connects these scenes into any sort of larger, coherent whole. After a while, it feels like you're watching a movie about four different people named Héctor Lavoe, and his legacy is lost in the shuffle.

And the movie is sort of hilariously chickenshit: Lavoe died of AIDS, so several scenes and a final title card are included solely to prove how wildly heterosexual he was. Even worse, several key deaths (including Lavoe's!) are dealt with entirely offscreen.

Actually, let me just go ahead and spoil the ending to drive home how lame this is: The final convalescence and death of the movie's biographical subject are dispensed with in a single scene in which Lopez listens to a phone message on her answering machine.

Also, Lopez can't decide if she's playing Lavoe's victim or enabler -- the movie sort of half-blames her -- and neither of her characters is likeable.

The music's lovely, though.

C-minus; 106 minutes; rated R for drug use, pervasive language and some sexuality.

'El Cantante' (The Oregonian, Aug. 3, 2007)

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Posted: Fri - August 3, 2007 at 03:22 PM        

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