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El cantante

Cookie-cutter bombast

By BETSY SHERMAN | August 1, 2007

2.0 Stars

VIDEO: Watch the trailer for El cantante.

Until the upcoming satire Walk Hard blows the musical-bio-pic genre into tatters, we’ll have to put up with cookie-cutter bombast like El cantante, a warts-and-all tribute to salsa star Hector Lavoe (Marc Anthony), the Puerto Rican singer who ignited New York’s Latin-music boom of the ’70s and ’80s, became addicted to heroin, and died from AIDS. Puchi (Jennifer Lopez, Anthony’s real-life spouse), Lavoe’s wife and a combative firecracker, tells the couple’s story, which fluctuates from the joy of Hector’s music to the misery caused by his inability to cope with responsibility. Her voiceover often states the obvious, and director Leon Ichaso uses that edgy-gritty-ugly DV style that really isn’t edgy anymore. But as an actor and a singer, Anthony excels. Unlike Lopez, he digs beneath the soap-opera dialogue and bares his character’s soul.

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