BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

XoWizIama Excellent adaptation.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Acapulqueno A better than average re-hash of the standard "rags-to-riches" formula: two Cuban musicians go to New York and overcome great hardships to find success as "The Mambo Kings." Spanish speakers, who might otherwise be a receptive audience, find it strange to watch two attractive but very white guys -- one French (Armand Assante) and one Spanish (Antonio Banderas) -- pretending to be Cuban without even trying for a Cuban accent. Even Desi Arnaz, Jr., playing his father, has a pronounced English accent. Linda Ronstadt, by contrast, does a wonderful job on Perfidia, but that song is only used as background music.The incomparable Celia Cruz, whose life is a genuine Cuban rags-to-riches story, has a small part, but is mostly limited to singing in English except for a bit of the classic "Guantanamera". It's too bad the producers didn't decide to film her story instead: at least she, her music and her speech are all genuine Cuban.

AlexMoeller In the beginning this film was very promising. I think the start was good, but in the end I had lost all my enthusiasm. The film is about two brothers who come to America from Cuba. They are Mambo musicians,and they want to make it in New York. This was an OK starting point, but the movie faded into a mediocre story of all the hardships the two brothers face.3,5/10

aromatic-2 If you are into the mambo beat, and I am, that alone should make for the foundation of a good movie. Add two prime hunks of beefcake like Assante and Banderas. There is also a chance to see the incomparable Tito Puente perform. Further add the immensely talented Shakespearean-trained Roscoe Lee Browne and Desi Arnaz Jr. portraying his father, and you should have a can't-miss experience. Wrong!It starts with the directorial debut by Arne (formerly Arnold) Glimscher. Everything is angry and in-your-face. Plot motivations and character motivations are given short shrift or ignored altogether except for ubiquitous anger. The camera angles are out of control. Even the can't-miss score is mishandled and inappropriately matched to different scenes. The pacing is non-existent. The piece-de-resistance is a slow-mo death scene that even Ed Wood could have directed better.The less said about the *#@%$@* writing the better. This is one of those movies that tries to show you how macho it is by non-stop cursing. But even the non-expletive dialogue is disgusting.The performances are simply dreadful. In other comments here, I saw that someone called this Banderas' best performance. Huh??? It is, by far, his worst. He renounces it himself! He read his English phonetically and it showed. He was stiff, unconvincing, and totally out-of-sync. He's gorgeous, of course, but his character is too important for that alone to be enough.Since Armand Assante was playing off him in almost every scene, it threw his timing totally off-balance and accentuated his anger and frustration. His character also did some implausibly stupid things given his background. Cathy Moriarity does what she can in her scenes with Assante, and there he almost seems like a totally different character, one you can stand spending some time with.The stentorian Roscoe Lee Browne humiliates himself as a Cuban mobster in a pathetically phony accent. Desi Arnaz's scenes give the viewer some unintentional comic relief. Equally hilarious is the eighty-something Puente's attempt to play himself at 45.Overall, if I were ever asked to teach a class on film, I would use this as my warning lesson on what traps to avoid.

maryjeff1 What can I say about this gem? I cry every emotion each time I see it. Assante is compelling and heart-wrenching as the ambitious and devoted older brother, Banderas rounds the two out with innocence and struggle for independence. Also a most moving story of unrequited love.