Movie Review: El Cantante

Over the last few years the film market has been over saturated with biopics, many of which have been about musicians. Ray, Walk the Line, Get Rich or Die Tryin', and Beyond the Sea are just a few of this rather large batch. Not that it matters much, but El Cantante adds little to the already mediocre genre. Biopics tend to fail when they try and cover an entire life of a person in a mere two hours. El Cantante proves this with its unemotional and uneven structure. Hector Lavoe (Marc Anthony) and Puchi (Jennifer Lopez) never feel like anything more than caricatures, a fault that is not of the two actors' performances. Instead, that fault lies with the story never allowing the characters to receive proper development. This is a simple case of style over substance.

As a young boy, Hector Lavoe was a soft spoken, hard worker who had a fondness for salsa. Salsa was introduced to him by his beloved padre and Hector discovers that he has a great voice and winds up auditioning for a band. Stunned by his surprising talent, they immediately want him to join. Along the way to fame, Hector meets Puchi, who he ends up marrying and having a son with. As his celebrity status rises, Hector goes the predictable route and finds drugs to be his favorite thing outside of music. He also has a penchant for sleeping with dozens of different girls. Meanwhile, Puchi is struggling to keep an active relationship between herself, her husband and their son, who merely wishes to spend time with his father.