Film biographies are a genre of their own, and they seem to follow the same outline. As the genre conventions would have it, you have no hope of ever being a famous performer if you lack any of the following: a troubled childhood, an early life of poverty, serious psychological problems, and parents who have (with some flexibility) psychological problems of their own, alcohol addictions, abusive tendencies, a failed marriage, or fidelity problems (at the least). Oh—you, of course, also must be a drug addict, an alcoholic, an abuser, or an inattentive mate.

According to the film El Cantante, and the conventions of the genre, Salsa singer Hector Lavoe has all of the necessary components to be a great performer. The producers of El Cantante tell us that the film is “inspired by the extraordinary life of salsa legend, Hector Lavoe.” So remember, all you ordinary people, if you are faithful to your spouse, don’t do drugs, and are for the most part well-adjusted, you have been categorized in the “ordinary” column.

Born in Puerto Rico and raised till adulthood there, Lavoe musically labors in obscure but secure surroundings. He decides he wants to go to New York and make a bigger life for himself. He is loved in his native Puerto Rico, but it appears he is just another Puerto Rican who can sing. And the Puerto Ricans of the 1960s don’t have a lot of money to waste on albums from a guy who they can hear on the street corners for free. Besides, there are way more drugs in New York than in Puerto Rico. How can Hector’s life be extraordinary when all he gets in PR is marijuana?

El Cantante is described in the film’s production notes as a “labor of love” for its stars Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez. Its purpose is to re-introduce the world to the music of Hector Lavoe. Marc Anthony’s role is to portray the namesake, and he does so very well. I discuss Jennifer Lopez’s labor of love more below.

El Cantante is filmed effectively to look like the ‘60s and ‘70s, when Hector was at his peak in popularity. The camera work gives us a look at what must have been a greasy, low-down sort of poverty-pop music scene—that had great common appeal. The music is extraordinary, even without drugs.

As is the case with most films, this movie also has more than one layer, a cultural prism through which the story is presented. In this case, that prism is the New York population of Puerto Rican immigrants—and in this respect, the film is excellent. Filmed on location in NYC and in incomparable Puerto Rico, El Cantante is a treat for the eyes. I even recognized some of the Puerto Rican locations, and that added a touch of contemporaneity. Much of the dialogue is in Spanish and I was surprised that I didn’t need as many of the subtitles as I expected as the context of the scenes, when jumping from Spanish to English, seems natural and relevant.

But a major drawback to this film is its apparent (and contradictory) presumption that the audience knows more about Lavoe than they do. I had never heard of Hector Lavoe—admittedly, I may be the only one—and many of the locales of concerts, staged as historic moments, were indecipherable to me. Perhaps one concert is truly no different from any other, in Lavoe’s mind.

Another drawback is that there is also another underlying labor of love here: not of Lavoe, but of Jennifer Lopez. Her production shamelessly features her in almost every scene. When she is not being featured, she is upstaging someone else in some way.

The screenplay takes the uninteresting point of view of JLo’s character, Puchi—Hector’s wife. The writing is uninspired, and JLo does not convince us that she is Puchi. For example: Puchi, who has never been to Puerto Rico, has the strongest Latino accent in the film; Hector, who was a native of Puerto Rico until adulthood, has an imperceptible accent. Perhaps this is not unusual in the real world, but it comes off as a showy distraction.

Puchi is not lovable; she is a dopehead and an alcoholic. But her scenes play up her “good side,” and JLo’s costumes are designed to upstage the rest of the cast in every scene. She is artfully displayed, even in domestic fights, and never looks bad. In short, she is the best-preserved and least-affected life-long cocaine addict in the world.

JLo exploits her own persona so much that the story about Hector becomes a story about Jennifer Lopez playing Hector’s wife, who, fortunately for JLo, was overbearing and required constant face time. Not so fortunate for us.

El Cantante is rated R for “strong language, drug use, and some sexuality” (a skimpily-dressed JLo; see above). I admit that the drug shots were so effective that I thought they really were snorting cocaine. I also believe that Phillip Morris made its annual quota of cigarette sales during the filming of this movie.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Mike attended a promotional screening of El Cantante.