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El Cantante

El Cantante (2007)

tomatometer

25

Average Rating: 4.8/10
Reviews Counted: 106
Fresh: 26 | Rotten: 80

El Cantante adheres to the most basic conventions of the musical biopic, rendering it indistinguishable from others of its ilk.

27

Average Rating: 4.7/10
Critic Reviews: 30
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 22

El Cantante adheres to the most basic conventions of the musical biopic, rendering it indistinguishable from others of its ilk.

audience

63

liked it
Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 8,951

My Rating

Movie Info

Pop icon Marc Anthony steps into the role of Salsa superstar Hector Lavoe in this biopic that follows the singer from his early career success as a Puerto Rican teen sensation to his later status as a New York City Latin idol while also documenting his ongoing struggle against drug and alcohol addiction. Actress and pop star Jennifer Lopez co-stars as Puchi; Lavoe's longtime muse and love interest. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Oct 30, 2007

$7.5M

Picturehouse

All Critics (107) | Top Critics (30) | Fresh (27) | Rotten (81) | DVD (4)

This may be one of the very few biopics in which the subject is marginalized to the point of irrelevance.

August 17, 2007 Full Review Source: Toronto Star | Comment
Toronto Star
Top Critic IconTop Critic

El Cantante has to legitimize its subject before it can immortalize him; and in the effort, it makes the mistake of letting a star get in the way of the truth.

August 17, 2007 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | Comment
Globe and Mail
Top Critic IconTop Critic

I would have liked to have seen a more in-depth look at the salsa movement. Still, we do get a lot of great music, and Anthony is a natural onscreen in a tailor-made role.

August 9, 2007 Comment
Ebert & Roeper
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Marc Anthony plays the smack-addicted singer, who has some dynamite numbers but not much to say for himself.

August 9, 2007 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comment
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A downer of a musical biopic that leaves no cliché unturned.

August 6, 2007 Full Review Source: New York Post | Comment
New York Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The film's first half is an uneven string of scenes that offer little setup and sometimes confuse.

August 3, 2007 Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | Comment
Houston Chronicle
Top Critic IconTop Critic

This is an entertaining biopic that's worth seeing for the terrific musical sequences and for the superb performances by Anthony and Lopez. Recommended.

September 5, 2008 Full Review Source: ViewLondon | Comment
ViewLondon

In fact, Lopez deserves praise for pushing this project. The recently deceased Puchi (who helped generate the script and pushed for Lopez to play her) is not the kind of character you see on screen every day.

September 5, 2008 Full Review Source: This is London | Comment
This is London

Leon Ichaso's film soft-pedals everything save the language in what often resembles a made-for-cable biopic.

September 5, 2008 Full Review Source: Daily Telegraph | Comment
Daily Telegraph

There is something entirely dead about Lopez's performance. No matter how superficially lively she makes it, she is always simply mouthing the lines. Never mind Jenny from the block. Jenny is the block. Of wood.

September 5, 2008 Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | Comment
Guardian [UK]

The film, however, beginning with a flashback to 1963, is a soft-pedalled account of Lavoe's rise to fame and his drug-related downfall that has more in common with the biopic parody Walk Hard than anything as muddy as real life.

September 5, 2008 Full Review Source: Times [UK] | Comment
Times [UK]

It doesn't help that, in the title role, Marc Anthony has all the onscreen charisma of wet dough.

September 5, 2008 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comment

This messy, maudlin portrait of the decline and decline of Puerto Rico-born salsa star Héctor Lavoe wavers uncertainly between cable channel biopic and socially concerned drug movie.

September 5, 2008 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

Thought it was impossible to make the story of a drug-addicted musical icon boring? You were wrong.

August 23, 2008 Full Review Source: ReelzChannel.com | Comment

Jennifer Lopez is superb as Puchi, delivering a totally credible, multi dimensional character.

July 12, 2008 Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile | Comment
Urban Cinefile

I want a great film about Hector Lavoe, and after watching this, I'm still waiting for it...

January 6, 2008 Full Review Source: Cinema Crazed | Comment (1)
Cinema Crazed

It's steadily downhill after J. Lo picks up her man from the local crack house and licks coke off his ****, but it's worth sticking with it for Marc Anthony's performance.

October 27, 2007 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Slant Magazine

Marc Anthony's heavily drugged henpecked trophy hubby Lavoe is upstaged offstage at all times by Lopez as the singer's screeching nag of a wife.

October 26, 2007 Full Review Source: Critical Women | Comment
Critical Women

Jennifer Lopez plays it tough and down and dirty, on the Mexican border.

October 25, 2007 Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | Comment
NewsBlaze

Another singer self-destructs, to a Latin beat.

October 22, 2007 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media | Comment
Common Sense Media
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for El Cantante

"El Cantante," starring Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, is what I expected it to be: an extremely superficial, television-level biopic with great music and entertaining concert footage. It has some extra value as one of the rare American films about Latinos, and for this reason I think an effort should be made to see

August 24, 2007
Bill D 2007
William Dunmyer

Super Reviewer

Hector Lavoe? Who is he? A salsa legend? A drug addict? An immigrant from Peurto Rico? Well he was all three. Yet, this film isn't just about him, but also his personal and family life, along set with his wife Puchi there to keep him from destroying his own life. Either way, this film grasped me and made me really

July 7, 2009
EbertsLittleApprentice

Super Reviewer

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