Metacritic Film

Pantaleón y las Visitadoras

Starring Angie Cepeda, Salvador del Solar, Pilar Bardem, Mónica Sánchez, Tatiana Astengo, Norka Ramírez, Patty Cabrera, and Maricielo Effio

MPAA RATING: R for strong sexuality, nudity and language

Venevision International Films
Foreign
137 minutes | Color
Peru
Released In Theaters September 27, 2002

An army captain is commissioned to establish a prostitution service to placate the needs of soldiers posted in the Amazon.

WRITTEN BY
Giovanna Pollarolo
Mario Vargas Llosa (novel)

DIRECTED BY
Francisco J. Lombardi

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

51 / 100

Critic Reviews

70 New Times (L.A.)
This may not seem to be the stuff of comedy, but a comedy it is, and a compelling one too, laden with hot sex and standout performances.
70 Los Angeles Times
While Pantaleón does have its scorching erotic moments and skewers establishment hypocrisy toward prostitution, it lacks the originality and complexity of "Y Tu Mamá."
63 New York Post Megan Lehmann
Director Francisco de Lombardi fills his sensual film with plenty of gorgeous shots of the lush landscape and its equally exotic, miniskirted "fauna."
60 TV Guide
A military satire in the tradition of M*A*S*H and Catch-22, based on Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa's 1973 book.
50 LA Weekly
Roaming freely between comedy (which mostly works) and drama (which mostly doesn't) before settling on trite sentimentality, the film may not be an altogether unpleasant way to pass the time, but, ultimately, the innocuous Captain Pantoja doesn't earn its stripes.
50 San Francisco Chronicle
A pedestrian film that provides little more than a superficial treat.
30 Village Voice
Sadly, most of Lombardi's movie is too doggedly mediocre to cut loose, overheated (and quite lovely) cinematography notwithstanding.

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