Vanity project for J-Lo kind of starring her husband about one of the founders of Salsa who's hard driving life left him burned out and dead of AIDS. Told in flashback by a woefully miscast and wildly too young J-Lo this is about something, I'm not sure what. Maybe about some guy who makes music. Yes thats it Marc Anthony is in it and he sings a lot. he also gets drunk and high a great deal. And he plays a lot of music...oh yea and he throws up on J-lo (actually I think this about a woman who prattles on and on and on and talks about nothing). Think of the worst Behind the Music special on VH1 and then remove any sort of information. I watched this film for two hours and I have no idea who anyone was. J-Lo as Anthony's wife babbles on about how funny her husband was but we never see it. Everyone else wanders around doing things that are never really explained- except when they make music. The music here is wonderful. A mix of music of the period with great Salsa this is a movie that almost becomes a great music video, unfortunately the music gets interrupted for J-Lo's rambling narration or unconnected dialog scenes. This may mean something if you know who the actors are suppose to be portraying, if not you're going to be very very lost. Poorly filmed, the set ups are almost basic and unimaginative, and the scenes of New York and elsewhere were clearly filmed decades after the events take place (Marc Anthony's character had been dead over ten years when Andrew Lloyd Webber's woman in White played the Marriot Marquis.) There's a good story here and clearly Marc Anthony, who's as good as his wife is bad, is the man to act in it, but the film as it exists now is really pointless. Its not bad, its badly made so that you come out knowing less than when you went in. Frankly the only reason to see this is the music which is great. Maybe if we can find a print where the narration is removed and we just hear the songs we might have a watchable film.
Review of El cantante
