A shaggy-dog tale propped up almost exclusively by its stars’ immeasurable charisma, Rudo y Cursi is nonetheless an entirely engaging Mexican fairy tale about two bickering brothers who find brief, and sudden, fame on competing soccer teams. Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, lifelong friends in real life, first starred together in Mexican telenovelas as kids and then shone in Alfonso Cuaron’s popular Y Tu Mama Tambien; here, Cuaron’s brother Carlos seeks to rekindle that cinematic chemistry in a low-key comedy about the consequences of fame that, in all honesty, has been told in more ways than one can count. It is to the credit of all involved, however, they are able to dust off the cobwebs and craft a tale that, while shy of surprises, proves especially sturdy in the telling.

Tato (Bernal) and Beto (Luna) are rural farmhands still living at home with their mother, sister, and stepfather. Tato, an aspiring and talentless musician, is also a forward on the local soccer team. Beto, who is married with a son, plays goalkeeper when he’s not indulging in his gambling habits. Both are playing soccer on competing teams in a local pickup game when they are innocently ‘discovered’ by a Mexico City scout/agent, Batuta, who has only stopped by their town to get his car fixed. With only enough money to sign one of them, he has the pair compete one-on-one to determine who will get a contract. A mix-up between the two of them insures that it is Tato who wins the contract, and in due time he packs up his guitar and jumps in Batuta’s car for the drive to Mexico City and, he is sure, eventual fame as a footballer and singing star.

Batuta dumps Tato in a one-room Mexico City apartment, which he shares with other players, while he tries to find a team for him to play on. Circumstances, and storytelling, soon assure us that Beto will soon be joining his brother in the apartment, as they wait for their chance to play. Eventually, Batuta is able to find positions for both brothers, on two competing teams in the Mexico City league. Both rot on the benches of their teams for some time before they get their opportunities and, eventually, become national celebrities, with Beto gaining the nickname “Rudo” (for his rough style of play), and Tato is “Cursi” (for his ‘vulgarity’). It is when this celebrity takes hold that fame and its attendant shadows create problems for our heroes, who originally only wanted to afford a home for their beloved mother, but now use it to whatever ends it may entail. This includes a record deal and trophy TV-presenter girlfriend for Tato, and the money for Beto to indulge his worst habits. Eventually Beto’s gambling problems cause headaches for everybody, which leads to the final showdown, as the brothers’ teams compete in a huge soccer match.

There’s a briskness to the storytelling, which seems to take some pleasure in knowing that no new ground needs to be broken, and Cuaron echoes some of his gifted brother’s cinematic technique (pre-Children of Men) to give a smudged, hazy feel to the Mexican locales. Bernal and Luna both appear to be enjoying themselves immensely, neither being forced to play the ‘angelic exotic’ that they have in the past, and just rooting down into the rough-hewn characters of dopes who luck into fortune and don’t know how to deal with it. Their co-stars are all excellent, from Guillermo Francella’s Batuta to Jessica Mas’s heartless beauty Maya, but the film’s true star may well be Mexico City, itself, as it is shown as exactly what it is: a metropolis which, in its sheer enormity, is able to house both the affluent and the poverty stricken, whose dreams are not so different from each other. – [DVD]

Comedy/Drama/Sport

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 8/25/09

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