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El Cantante
Picturehouse Entertainment


5.6

based on 24 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 57 votes
Read user comments
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FILM:

Piñero

MPAA RATING: R for drug use, pervasive language and some sexuality

Starring Jennifer Lopez, and Marc Anthony

El Cantante celebrates the life and music of the legendary Puerto Rican salsa singer Hector Lavoe, a pioneer of the sound and sensibility that redefined Latin music in the 1960s and 1970s. El Cantante portrays an era when a new sense of national identity and pride took root in Puerto Rican communities across the U.S. Hector Lavoe's music was both a soundtrack to and affirmation of that awakening. (Picturehouse)

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	David Darmstaeder (& story) Todd Bello (& story) Leon Ichaso
DIRECTED BY:	Leon Ichaso
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: October 30, 2007 Theatrical: August 3, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	116 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA
LANGUAGE(S):	Spanish / English

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...

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Anthony doesn't have a large emotional range as an actor, and neither does Lopez. Still, the musical numbers, which constitute a hefty portion of screen time, are thrilling.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

A special film, one that refuses to package a person's life into a comfortably familiar genre.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

It's a soaring, crashing, blazing affair with pyrotechnic performances by real-life spouses Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez as Lavoe and his wife, Puchi. Like a plane disaster, it holds you in thrall of ¡ay, Dios mio! drama.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

A star isn't born in El Cantante as much as it's reconfirmed. She's still here, and she's still got it.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The music is the uncontested highlight of El Cantante.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Biopic cliches hamstring producer-star Jennifer Lopez's pet project.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

The awkwardly told story of salsa legend Hector Lavoe, El Cantante doesn't even get the title right: It should have been called "La Esposa," since it's really less about the singer than his wife.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A sizzling soundtrack and Jennifer Lopez's best performance since "Out of Sight" go only so far in El Cantante, a downer of a musical biopic that leaves no cliché unturned.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

If you're a fan of Hector Lavoe and Latin music, or Lopez and Anthony, you'll want to see El Cantante for what's good in it. Otherwise, you may be disappointed. The director (Leon Ichaso) and his co-writers haven't licked a crucial question: Why do we need to see this movie and not just listen to the music?

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

"Everybody loved him. One woman understood him," goes the ad line. But the movie makes you wonder how anyone could love this screw-up and why anyone would have a problem understanding him.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Ideally, it would give you a sense of an entire people knocking the planet off its axis with a shake of their hips. If only El Cantante were that movie. Instead, it's a curiously sludgy cross between a Doomed Star biopic and a J. Lo vanity project.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

It may be best to approach El Cantante less as a movie than as a two-hour promotional video for a must-have soundtrack album.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Unfortunately, the music is as irresistible as the tired story of a musician succumbing to substance abuse is resistible.

Entertainment Weekly Scott Brown

Anthony, with his famished thousand-yard stare, turns in a delicate -- perhaps too delicate -- performance more informed by the shadow of Lavoe's death than the spark of his art. And his shrill domestic scenes with Lopez feel small and squalid, as we wait restlessly for the band to play us out.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Turns out to be nothing special. Well, the music is. The storytelling is not.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Anthony delivers a respectable performance, but his character never comes into sharp focus. Consequently, Lavoe emerges as a supporting character in his own story.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

It's whenever the music stops that the movie runs into trouble.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

Lopez can't decide if she's playing Lavoe's victim or enabler -- the movie sort of half blames her -- and neither of her characters is likable. The music's lovely, though.

Variety Robert Koehler

A virtual template of every imaginable cliche of the musical biopic, picture suffers from a lack of narrative and character focus

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Unfortunately, there's little more than formula in Ichaso's El Cantante.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Before long, El Cantante disintegrates into a stylized jumble -- even a straightforward jumble would have been preferable.

Premiere Scott Warren

Ichaso seems far too interested in what led to Lavoe's downfall rather than what made him great.

Village Voice Robert Wilonsky

Focusing almost solely on Lavoe's addictions (drugs and women, ho and hum), El Cantante is a garish, dispiriting bit of work--a mountain of biopic clichés snorted through the lens of a fidgety camera that never pauses long enough for us to get to like (or even know) the man responsible for making the Nuyorican sound a mainstream American commodity in the 1970s and early '80s.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The film doesn't make a case for Lavoe as an important artist.

The average user rating for this movie is 5.6 (out of 10) based on 57 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

IRA gave it a10:
This film is just great. Real not the usual sugered story!

Lorena O. gave it a10:
Loved this moview. They were both great!

STANLEY M. gave it a10:
This movie was great and i do understand that it was the point of one person (puchi) and that was stated in the begining of the movie, So all of the harsh critics need to relax it was her point of view ,,,, Get over it Marc did a great JOB

Daniel gave it a5:
A real disappointment. One should expect more from Ichaso: "Pinero" was a much better biopic than this attempt. Marc Anthony should never act again. Good music score.

Hector L. gave it a0:
The numbers speak for themselves.

Rueddie A gave it a1:
Music scenes were great...story like retarded...this movie should've been named POOCHIE.

Steven V. gave it a10:
Let me tell you that the performances in this movie are fantastic, especially from la Lopez, who made her mark every time she would be on screen. She was edgy, sharp, soooo New York!!!!. I would love to see her get some nominations for this. Marc Anthony gives a passionate performance as well, as if playing Hector Lavoe was second nature to him. The acting by Anthony just flowed out, nothing forced or too rehearsed, and when he sang you felt it. I absolutely loved this movie!!!! and in the end the one who shined the most was Jennifer Lopez- hurray for her!!! . Lets not forget the unbelievable soundtrack, the one everyone must have!!!.

El Cantante Picturehouse Entertainment

El Cantante
Picturehouse Entertainment