Michael's Movie Grade: D
A very ambitious film but ultimately a misfire.
This film is really two movies in one. One is a prison drama about two prisoners, one a macho very serious revolutionary and the other a sensitive movie obsessed gay man. The other is a fictional 1950's movie musical, which the movie obsessed inmate tells his cellmate all about.
Most critics seem to be praising Jennifer Lopez's performance (as the star of the fictional movie), calling it one of the best of her career. No offense to J-Lo but her casting is actually one of the film's greatest flaws. She is a talented performer and does a good job with song numbers. However, she is missing that larger-than-life quality the role calls for. We are supposed to believe that the movie obsessed inmate views the actress and the character as a larger-than-life screen goddess. Yet watching J-Lo on screen we never once get this feeling from her. This makes one of the most important aspects of the story fall completely flat. The fiction 1950's film within a film also never quite worked for me. It never really captures the look or feel of a 1950's movie musical. The look is simply too modern and as someone who has seen plenty of 1950's Technicolor films, this simply took me out of the movie. I know this film within a film is not supposed to be a masterpiece, but the storyline itself is too messy and it hard to understand why someone would be so obsessed with it. The songs are pleasant to listen to but easily forgettable. Writing this review the same day I watched the movie; I am having trouble even trying to remember what any of these songs sound like.
The prison drama is not much better. The two inmates are rather bland and stereotypical characters. Though there are attempts to endow these characters with more depth, they never quite overcome their familiarity. There is also an attempt to add greater emotional depth to the relationship between these characters, but it just seems to come out of nowhere. This robs it of any emotional effect it could have. This movie tries to make some political commentary. However, for such an otherwise ambitious film, it plays it too safe in this regard. Though one of the main characters is a revolutionary, we never hear him state what he is actually fighting for, outside of some very basic left of center statements. Because of this it is hard to get caught up in his storyline. It is hard to connect to a person who is constantly being threatened with torture for his political activism, when the activism feels like nothing more than a plot point. The final act of this story seems to go on forever making this movie seem much longer than it is.
The closest thing this movie has to a saving grace is the actors playing the two prisoners, Tonatiuh and Diego Luna. They are fantastic and add some humanity to these otherwise bland characters. That they played both the prisoners and two characters in the film within a film is a clever idea.
This is a real disappointment of a film. It frankly should have been much better than it did.
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