Rudo Y Cursi
- Year:2009
- Rating:M
- Director:Carlos Cuaron
- Cast:Gael Garcia Bernal, Guillermo Francella, Diego Luna, Jessica Mas
- Release Date:July 30, 2009
- Distributor:Roadshow
- Running time:103 minutes
- Film Worth:$14.00
- FILMINK rates movies out of $20 - the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
First time director Carlos Cuaron successfully mixes touching comedy with biting social realism.
Best known as the screenwriting (Y Tu Mama Tambien) kid brother of Alfonso Cuaron, Carlos Cuaron makes his feature directorial debut with the kinetic, sharply comedic Rudo Y Cursi, which is also notable as the first effort from Cha Cha Cha Productions, the newly formed production company of Mexican heavy hitters Guillermo Del Toro, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Alfonso Cuaron.
Gorgeously lensed in a coastal banana town in Mexico's west, the film centres on the rivalry between banana-picking, soccer-playing half brothers Tato (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Beto (Diego Luna). While this reunion of Y Tu Mama Tambien's stars and writer smacks of gimmickry, the warm familiarity rendered by the leads is actually instrumental in elevating this film in scope and quality.
Spotted by the pleasantly slimy scout Batuta (Guillermo Francella, who also serves as narrator), the brothers find themselves parachuted into soccer-mad Mexico City, where the dreamy Tato is cast by the press as "Cursi" (a mild pejorative meaning flashy). Fulfilling a lifelong ambition, he briefly becomes a pop star (with a horrific cover of Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me") and finds himself romantically stung by a social climbing television personality (Jessica Mas). Meanwhile, brother Beto becomes the goalkeeping hardman "Rudo" (rude) for a rival squad, and promptly finds himself saddled with immense coke and gambling problems. Their fame burns short and hot, and the brothers' twin desultory spirals are tinged with commentary on modern Mexico's celebrity culture. The film's central voice, however, is hardly weighted by such message making - Cuaron also deftly touches on benevolent drug lords, soccer's systematic corruption, and the nation's rural/urban divide - as the comedy is buoyed by the traces of social realism that happily crop up.
