Rudo y Cursi
Brothers: Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal
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Tuesday, 23, Jun 2009 07:43
Directed by Carlos Cuaron, out June 26th in cinemas, starring Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna, Guillermo Francella and Jessica Mas, running time 103 minutes.
In a nutshell...
The beautiful game, Mexican style
What's it all about?
Infighting half-brothers Beto/Rudo (Luna) and Tato/Cursi (Garcia Bernal) work on a banana plantation in impoverished rural Mexico, but their lives are transformed when a seemingly otherworldly football talent scout (Francella) whisks them away to the Mexican premier league.
How will they cope with the pressure of playing in front of crowds of thousands, living hundreds of miles from their families and with the many vices of Mexico City? And will their mother ever get that beachside mansion her sons promised her? Or will their brother-in-law drug lord come to the rescue?
Who's in it?
Eight years after their breakout roles (in the west at least) in Y Tu Mama Tambien, Mexico's biggest stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna are reunited in Rudo y Cursi.
The family feel of the film is borne out by Mexico's other famous film-making son Guillermo del Toro co-producing alongside the two stars in the first offering from their Cha Cha Cha company.
The movie is also the first feature film from Carlos Cuaron, an Oscar- and Bafta-nominated screenwriter. If the name sounds familiar it's because he is the brother of Y Tu Mama Tambien director Alfonso.
As an example...
"I want you to want me/I need you to need me/I'd love you to love me/I'm begging you to beg me/I want you to want me/I need you to need me/I'd love you to love me." - Tato (sung throughout the film).
[Tato scores penalty]
Rudo: I said aim right! Why'd you should the other way?
Tato: I aimed right!
Rudo: I meant the other right!
Likelihood of a trip to the Oscars
Mexican tragicomedies don't often feature high on the Academy's list, but a clutch of awards should follow Rudo y Cursi elsewhere.
What the others say
"While bad things happen to our Candide-like antiheroes, this is not a gloomy film. Cuaron mines suffering and pessimism for subversive comedy. His script draws a parallel between the soccer world, where bribery determines which players make the cut, and the sleazy practices of Wonderlife, the multilevel distributor of diet supplements where Luna's striving wife hopes to build a career. The satire is pointed and a bit heartbreaking, softened by the evident sympathy Cuaron feels for the characters." - California Chronicle
"If there's a bone to be picked, it's with the pic's moral lesson: Don't reach above your station in life, it seems to say, because you're bound to become a victim of your own appetites and ego. We've seen it all too often before. Fortunately, Rudo y Cursi isn't about sociology; it's about creating a comic showpiece for two young actors who virtually pop off the screen." - Variety
So is it any good?
Rudo y Cursi, the names on the brothers' shirts and the closest English translations of which is crude and corny, suffers initially from ambiguity. For the first couple of scenes its genre appears unclear, until you realise the closely-worded material is an opportunity for its two leads to show how funny they can be, whatever the circumstances.
Closely resembling the melodrama of a telenovela, Rudo y Cursi soars from the dusty fields the brothers' sideline in football on until Guillermo Francella's trashy coupe-driving, beer-swilling, shrimp-wielding uber-agent Batuta turns up.
Despite clearly being over the hill already, Batuta introduces both brothers to the delights and temptations of the big (and we mean big) city.
In the capital everything goes right for Tato (Cursi) and Beto (Rudo) until the many sins of said city begin to catch up.
Beto's gambling problem finally finds the air it needs to wreck him forever, while Tato refuses to give up on a singing career (his Cheap Tricks cover is a highlight of the movie), while failing to recognise the fact that his sexy TV host fiancée (Mas) is only along for the ride until the goals dry up.
Though ostensibly a movie about football; precious little time is devoted to action on the pitch, the obligatory penalty-driven finale aside.
Football isn't the real story here, two men's obsessions being given the opportunity to thrive and destroy their hosts is. Depressingly, in Mexico, there is space for your dreams to come true, but also for them to fall apart in front of your eyes, with the only salvation coming from drug-soaked dollars.
In a film about two brothers trying to fulfil a promise to their mother and in a country wracked by narcotics-related violence, only the local drug-lord has the means to buy that luxury beachside villa your mama always wanted.
8/10
Matthew Champion