El Cantante

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A Solid Movie, 2008-12-08
I am not a J-Lopez fan, not much of today's salsa fan and I consider Mark Anthony a great salsa singer but only a tepid actor. Having established that, I love '70s salsa (salsa that you could dance AND listen to) and grew up listening to Hector Lavoe. After watching this movie I realized that I had caught -quite by accident- perhaps the last radio interview Lavoe gave before he died in the early `90s. None of the drama here got was ever mentioned and the movie explains why. br / br /J-Lopez is by far the most over-rated celebrity ever but in this movie she gives an unimpeachable performance, she's solid. In the first two minutes she draws you in and the movie manages to show her different sides, inconsistencies and develops her into a complex character. Mark Anthony earns his money too; he's funny and introspective. Director Leon Ichaso is hit-and-miss in recreating the characters' torrid relationship but made a beautifully artsy movie; it was good to FINALLY see a director using the palate of Caribbean colors to full effect in film. br / br /There are a few duds in El Cantante though, and they cost it a few stars. br /1) The film runs longer than it needs to; after a while it begins to rehash and overkill the points it's trying to make. br /2) "Puchi" (Lopez) is supposed to be a feisty yet uneducated girl from the barrio but her dialogue is often above her experience, as if she had years of therapy and has all kinds of insights to share. I loved her part of the script but it is above the experience the character is supposed to have had. br /3) The use of fragmented scenes bespeaks of Lavoe's losing sight of reality through drug use, but it is overdone and sometimes without clear purpose. It also runs -inexplicably- throughout the movie, not just after Lavoe's first use of hard drugs. br /4) Lavoe sang a lot about social issues (i.e. "Juanito Alimana") but this gets no mention in the movie. br /5) Anthony is a great salsa singer in his own right but his sounds NOTHING like Lavoe's nasally/throaty voice. Either sing like him or dub someone who does. br /6) One is led to believe that Lavoe's partner, Willie Colon, faded into obscurity after leaving the combo. In fact, Colon hooked-up with Ruben Blades and became even more famous than Lavoe ever was. He then went solo and recorded his own songs. I confess I didn't even know Lavoe and Colon had collaborated so closely originally, since Blades/Colon were THE legendary duo, recording perhaps the most famous salsa classics together. This movie was made not because Lavoe was the most famous salsa singer but because of the tragedies in his life. br /7) Salsa does get overplayed in the movie. Yes, it sets the mood but this is supposed to be a drama, not 1/4 music video. A nitpicky aspect is that while the wardrobe is exquisitely adapted to the '70s and '80s, many of the salsa dance moves are blatantly contemporary. This won't be lost on anyone who dances salsa. br / br /I have traveled a lot and from South Africa to London to Moscow to Japan, salsa is danced in ballrooms everywhere. For crying out loud, there was even a salsa combo in the early '90s of Japanese musicians ("La Orquesta de la Luz") who sang salsa in Spanish! This movie is about how that revolution started and how one of its most prominent singers became a victim of his own success. br / br /A very solid 3 1/2 stars, finally an American-Latin movie with nuance (not many of those) but with a little way to go still. May there be more. br / br /Saludos! br /

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ho hum biopic, 2008-11-30
**1/2 br / br /In 1963, Hector Perez was already a promising young singer in his native Puerto Rico when, at the age of seventeen, he moved to New York City to try and make a name for himself as a performer there. In no time flat, he was playing in clubs, had signed a lucrative recording contract with the Latin-flavored Fania Records, and had changed his name to the far more exotic-sounding Hector Lavoe. From the mid-1960s to his death from AIDS in 1993, Lavoe was an international sensation who helped to popularize the musical style known as "Salsa." But, as with most artists, he lived a life of self-destructive self-indulgence, marked by serial philandering and hardcore drug abuse. He also had a volatile relationship with "Puchi," the Bronx girl who became his wife and who narrates "El Cantante," the glossy movie about his life. br / br /Despite the novelty of the milieu and an undeniable sincerity on the part of everyone involved in its production, "El Cantante" remains doggedly conventional, lackluster and superficial in its treatment of the kind of material with which we are all too familiar from previous biopics that have chronicled the rise and fall of artists of all categories and stripes. Marc Antony brings a certain ferocity and depth to his portrayal of the struggling celebrity, but real-life wife Jennifer Lopez is all fluttery overacting as the woman who stood by her man through good times and bad (mostly bad). The music is enjoyable, but I'm afraid we've all been down this road so many times before that "El Cantante" fails to stir either our passions or our sympathy for the sadly benighted couple and all that they're going through. You'd be better off buying the albums instead.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Lopez steals the show, 2008-08-10
Since the public is still trying to get over the over-exposure of JLO a few years ago, an injustice has occurred: Lopez put in one stunning performance in this movie and failed to get the recognition it deserved. I didn't know anything about Hector Lavoe before this film and sadly I still don't know that much about him. I agree that as a biopic, the film fails to get the audience to connect with its main star. In fact, it seems to go out of its way to show how much of a selfish jerk (keeping it P.G.) he was. I think it has a lot to do with Anthony always wearing sunglasses in the film. You have to show the movie audience your eyes. That's how we bond with people. The sunglasses allowed Marc Anthony to hide from the audience-and therefore gave us a sense that Anthony's performance was false. Lopez needs to give up the singing and stick to acting. Also, I do agree with some of the other reviewers has said about the direction and editing. I don't think they should have approached this film like a faux documentary. It quickly grew old and confusing. Still this is a movie worth seeing.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Great Movie! Stand up Boriquas!!!, 2008-08-06
Great movie, about a great man Mr. Hector Lavoe (Perez). I am a Nuyorican from Brooklyn with alot of family in the bronx, and this music was always in my family parties. Salsa as a Latina, is the music of my heart...it moves me whenever I hear it.. br /At times I admit it may go a little slow..but overall I loved the cast and the story. And I am not a very big JLO fan....but I loved her in this movie as Hector's strong willed wife Puchi.. And it gave me a bit of history from back when Salsa first began and was the best..it made me proud.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

El cantante sings!, 2008-05-31
I loved this movie and I also love JLo and Marc Anthony! I think this movie was underrated. If you are truly interested in Hector Lavoe, you will love it. If you buy it just cause you want to see JLo and Marc, you probably won't like it. They are good in the movie but the story is what made it for me. Of course, it goes without saying, Marc Anthony's voice is supberb!