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Rudo y Cursi
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 25 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 4 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Drama
Written by: Carlos Cuarón
Directed by: Carlos Cuarón
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 8, 2009
DVD: August 25, 2009
Running Time: minutes, Color
Origin: USA/Mexico
Language(s): Spanish
Summary
RATING: R for pervasive language, sexual content and brief drug use
Starring Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna, and Guillermo Fracella
Beto and Tato Verdusco are brothers who work at a banana plantation and also play soccer for the village team. Nicknamed “Tough” because of his personality and football style, Beto dreams of becoming a professional soccer player; Tato’s dream is to be a famous singer, and both share the dream of building a house for their mother, Elvira. They have a change in luck when “Batuta”, a soccer talent scout, discovers them accidentally. Tato is the first to move to the big city where he becomes the star goal scorer for the prestigious Deportivo Amaranto. His baroque playing style earns him the nickname of “Corny”. Although Beto feels he has been betrayed and left behind, he soon travels to Mexico City to become the goalkeeper for Atlético Nopaleros. At the peak of glory, they forget all animosity, although it does not last long. At the very real possibility of fulfilling all of their dreams, the siblings must face an innate rivalry as well as their own demons and limitations. Beto is a gambler and allows his addiction to drag him down; Tato is unable to recognize his true talents and squanders every opportunity by pursuing a false idea of celebrity and status. The dream seems to slip through their fingers. And it is at their worst moment that the brothers find forgiveness trying to help each other while casting headlong towards their individual destiny. (Sony Classics)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The intimate movie hums with a back-in-the-hood vibe that gets the two stars playing contentedly, and delightfully, for the love of local filmmaking.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Mr. Cuarón directs with a hand that's as sure as it is deft. The music is terrific, though I can't say the same for the fusty subtitles, and Adam Kimmel's cinematography bathes the movie's cheerful absurdities in a beautiful glow.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Robert Abele
Mexico has had its share of debilitating transnational news lately, but the arrival of the puckishly entertaining, fleet-of-foot drama-comedy Rudo y Cursi deserves a hearty welcome.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
Hilarious, satirical and melancholy, Rudo y Cursi may not go as deep as "Y Tu Mamá También," but it has a similar vivacity. It turns this tale of brotherly bonds and sibling rivalry--a veiled allegory of the Cuarón boys themselves?--into one of the year's most memorable offerings.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Rudo y Cursi is as fatalistic as any film noir, but it's played for cartoonish screwball comedy. At once smooth and frantic, filled with cozy clutter and vulgar jive, the movie subsumes its moralizing in frat-house entertainment.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
That the fantasy comes crashing back to earth seems all but inevitable. That Rudo y Cursi doesn't crash in the process - that's muy bien.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
Carlos Cuaron's otherwise terrific new comedy Rudo Y Cursi barely survives its third-act "Goodfellas" descent into seedy coke-and-crime drama.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Luna and García Bernal display the kind of chemistry that makes you overlook the clichés in the script by first-time director Carlos Cuarón. Sometimes good-natured fun is enough.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Rudo y Cursi (which roughly translates to tough and corny) is more raucous and slight than the contemplative "Y Tu Mama," but it is an undeniably entertaining rags-to-riches-to-rags comedy.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
The rags-to-riches-to-rags trajectory is shopworn, but the sibling rivalries are cantankerous and goofy and Bernal's Tato, who fancies himself a pop singing star, wouldn't make the first cut on "American Idol."
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
This is not a deep movie, but it's a broad one. It reunites three talents who had an enormous hit with "Y Tu Mama Tambien": actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, and Carlos Cuaron, who wrote that film and writes and directs this one. Instead of trying to top themselves with life and poignancy, they wisely do something for fun.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Rudo y Cursi is a grave and calculated affront to the men of Mexico, and that's the source of its roistering charm.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
It's a film that gently spoofs such cultural staples as ranchera music, illegal gambling, labor exploitation and tabloid media. And it's the sort of film that sneaks serious themes and emotions in just when you think it's about to dissolve into farce. Small but largely satisfying.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Scott Knopf
What Cuarón and friends have done is made a cute genre film. What's the harm in that? I’m sure Bernal will be back to his edgy roots soon enough.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Duane Byrge
Rudo y Cursi scores from every angle -- comic, personal and cross-cultural.
Read Full Review >Variety John Anderson
Picture scores a solid goal for its national cinema and the cause of comedy.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
While the film is lively and engaging, it also, in the end, feels a little thin, largely because it is unsure of how earnestly to treat its own lessons about fate, ambition and brotherly love.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
Carlos Cuarón's screenplay is rambling and unstructured but full of vibrant dialogue. As in "Y Tu Mamá También," the insults the two leads hurl at one another are creatively filthy.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Living up to its title, Rudo y Cursi is appealingly tough and corny but contains little that causes these elements to congeal into anything greater.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
An occasionally amusing but strained fable about the dangers and delights of sibling rivalry that asks us to believe (for instance) that soccer scouts roam Mexico looking for 30-year-old recruits.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole
It's really a lazy comedy that is content telling a crude and corny Hollywood story with a Mexican accent.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
Luna and Bernal have amiability, but not enough to earn a recommendation for this clichéd movie.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
