El Cantante

Jennifer Lopez lends her fame and financing to this dreary biopic that attempts to make a movie star of her real-life husband, Marc Anthony, well-cast here as 1960s salsa king Hector Lavoe, who self-destructed after becoming addicted to heroin, and died of AIDS in 1993 at the age of 46. J-Lo plays the Puerto Rican singer's foul-mouthed wife Puchi, a star-struck teenager when she met him in 1963. Pop singer Anthony shows some real acting talent and, of course, performs Lavoe's songs energetically and charismatically, but both he and Lopez are undermined by a cliché-ridden script that rehashes the conventions of practically every star-is-born movie ever made. You know the drill: nice guy comes from nothing, struggles mightily to achieve fame and fortune, reaches the summit, becomes addicted to drugs, women, or power (or all three)…and then crashes and burns. Director Leon Ichaso (whose Crossover Dreams is the Citizen Kane of salsa movies) focuses a bit too much on Lavoe's degradation (Puchi elects to stay with her husband and even becomes an addict herself), and even though El Cantante springs to life whenever Anthony and J-Lo are performing, the musical interludes aren't enough to brighten up the pervasive gloom. Not a necessary purchase. [Note: DVD extras include two audio commentaries (one with writer-director Leon Ichaso; the other with writers Todd Anthony Bello and David Darmstaedter), the 36-minute behind-the-scenes featurette “The Sound and Heat of El Cantante,” a brief deleted scene, and trailers. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a disappointing film.] (E. Hulse)