Cantante [Import]

My wife and I watched the movie recently and we both enjoyed it very much. The film's excellent, period! Anyone curious to learn about this unique salsa singer should purchase the DVD. Though I must confess the biographical nature of it was sad for me to see. Of course it's unavoidable as he led such a tragic life. Hector must've had many wonderfully fun moments during his short life, but you couldn't really extract that from watching the film.

Having said that, I give high accolades to all involved in its production. Both Marc and Jennifer were excellent in their respective acting roles. I was particularly impressed with Jennifer and would agree with a commenter here that she should receive Oscar consideration.

Side notes: I wish the relationships between Hector and the other musicians like Willy Colon would've been explored even further. And that the director would've allowed the actor playing Ruben Blades to finish singing the song El Cantante on acoustic guitar - very cool.

Let me start off by stating that I thought this was a very good biopic about the legendary Hector Lavoe.
Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony both did an excellent
job in their portrayals of Lavoe and the fiery Puchi
and the way it was shot, the music, etc. was very good too.
I wish they could've been more detailed about the deaths
of Hector himself of AIDS in 1993, Hector and Puchi's son,
young Hector Jr., who was killed in a gun accident in 1987,
as well as Puchi's own tragic death in 2002.
That's my only sore spot.
The real problem lies in whomever they chose to distribute
and promote this film! When it came out it was in very limited
release and virtually non-exsistent in secondary market theatres!--
-Where I live (Orlando, FL), where there is a very
large latino community
(many of which are northern transplants
of Puerto Rican, Dominican & Cuban descent!)
there was abosolutely nowhere you
could go see this movie on it's opening weekend!
The only way that I got to see it was through a bootleg,
but this movie, if handled right, could have done much better!
Even now, though it's being released to DVD on Tuesday
October 30th, you haven't seen or heard any advertisements
on TV about it's release!--WTF??--Anywayz, I hope that it gets
the love that it deserves from the DVD buying/renting public,
because it's a great story and well done I might add!
I hope a film on the early days of salsa comes out
about Tito Puente / Celia Cruz / Mongo Santamaria/ La Lupe, etc.
that captures that time in the early 50's in NYC when all
of this music was being created. A biopic about any one of
those figures needs to be done. These stories need to be
told and passed on to younger generations and people
who may like salsa music, but never knew where it came from!
This DVD Is Worth Buying!

EL CANTANTE missed in the theater run, perhaps because the public is growing weary of 'little person makes good, becomes a celebrity, and aborts a successful life in favor of drugs' stories. But now that the film is available for DVD viewing in the home, the public can appreciate the very fine qualities of this surprise work. And it may not be too late for an Oscar nod for Jennifer Lopez...

The film is based on the life of Hector Lavoe (Marc Anthony), the Puerto Rican King of Salsa who gained fame and stardom in the 1970s and 1980s as not only a talented singer but also as a charismatic 'man of the people'. His rise to fame is related in a tremendously effective black and white late in life interview with Hector's wife Puchi (a brilliant role for Jennifer Lopez!) offering in flashback sequences the rise and fall of the King of Salsa, a life cut short by both drug abuse and AIDS. Much of the film is devoted to musical sequences that bristle with the excitement of Salsa music and Anthony carries his role as Lavoe very well. The cast is uniformly excellent with some fine new faces. Write/director Leon Ichaso lets the drama slip a bit in favor of the music, but still the performance of Jennifer Lopez as the smart but sleazy, tacky and wise Puchi is dynamite. The film is far more solid than expected: the opportunity for Lopez to demonstrate her talent is well worth watching. Grady Harp, November 07