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Written by Roger Moore, MCT
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Monday, 30 July 2007 |
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EL CANTANTE
3 stars (out of 5)
Cast: Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez
Director: Leon Ichaso
Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes
Industry rating: R for drug use, pervasive language and some sexuality
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Ten years ago, "Selena," a tragic musical bio-pic, launched Jennifer Lopez to movie stardom. "El Cantante," another tragic musical bio-pic, seems intended as something of a comeback.
Lopez co-stars with her husband, the singer Marc Anthony, in this version of the life of salsa legend Hector Lavoe, a Puerto Rican crooner who rose to fame in the `60s and `70s and who died of AIDS after a lifetime of drug abuse.
Lopez is on fine, fiery display here, all but channeling Rosie Perez as Puchi, the woman who rocked Hector's world, gave Hector his first joint and traveled the tragic road to fame with him. But Anthony is merely adequate in the title role, a singer with more stage presence than screen presence.
The story is framed within a long, black-and-white interview that Puchi did in 2002. She remembers meeting Hector, the young man with a great voice, in the New York of the 1960s. Though we miss his "big break," and the rise to fame bit is seriously curtailed here, Puchi is our eyewitness to a legend in the making, dancing onstage with him, alternately enabling and then trying to control his drug using and womanizing.
Lavoe - we see his record company talk him into changing his name from "Perez" - teams up with Willie Colon's big band for a new polyglot style of brassy, big-band pop. Salsa combines meringue and jazz and other styles in a sexy, rhythmic, infectious dance music, and Anthony performs those numbers with style.
Director Leon Ichaso ("Pinero") is more at home with the music as well, creating a jumpy, hand-held, danceable movie by taking us to concerts, clubs, parties, anywhere he can emphasize the music, J. Lo's moves, and not the story.
That plot is standard-issue bio-pic stuff; a strained relationship between Hector and his father, a nonexistent one between Hector and his son, epic fights over Hector's alarming drug use. It's less effective here partly because of Anthony's bland performance, partly because the movie never gets below the surface. Hector is depressed, withdrawn, troubled. Why, because his daddy didn't love him enough?
It doesn't help that Anthony morphs into Steve Buscemi during Lavoe's junkie years - gaunt, bug-eyed.
But that said, the movie's good intentions and great music win out as we're reminded of, or are introduced to for the first time, this seminal figure, his music and his place within a culture that is only just now arriving where he seemed destined to take it.
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