At the beginning of CHASING PAPI, we learn that Tomas, also known as Papi, was the most adorable baby ever born. He graduated into the most adorable little boy who ever lived, and thence to a manhood that makes women drop at his feet like so many horseflies on a hot day. In one of the film’s characteristically unfunny moments, we see him inspire a novice nun to question her calling when he passes by her with barely glance her way.
By now, and we’re talking roughly five minutes into this 88 minute film, your humble correspondent had given up the hope of being amused and settled grimly to the task at hand, namely making the best of the rest of the running time while hoping for a cinematic miracle to turn these proceedings around. Hope springs eternal in the breast of the film reviewer, you see. There’s no other explanation for why it should be that any of our ilk have the strength to carry on.
But I digress.
Papi is sincerely in love with three stereotypes, uh, women. They would be Cici (Sofia Vergara), the cocktail waitress who barely encases her bodaciously buxom figure in dresses that leave little to the imagination; Lorena (Roselyn Sanchez), the less shapely but more cerebral lawyer (you know she’s smart because she wears glasses), and Patricia (Jaci Velasquez), the heiress whose only use for her grey matter is to coordinate her designer labels with her omnipresent fashion accessory of a fluffly lapdog. The dog, by the way, gives the best performance of the flick.
Perhaps its just as well that writer and co-producer Laura Angelica Simon hasnt given Tomas real characters to interact with because Eduardo Verastegui, who plays Tomas, never quite rises to the challenge of playing a stereotype himself. Famous in Mexico as a soap opera hunk as well as a pop star, he does an excellent job of looking gorgeous with his wavy hair and smoldering good looks. Its when he has to say lines that things fall apart. Badly. He seems to have confused acting in a motion picture with posing for an 8×10 glossy.
The action is supposed to be high energy, but despite a popsicle-colored art design, the film plays with a surprising lethargy despite the histrionic efforts of all on screen who, with the exception of Verastequis posing, never fails to resort to loud voices, waving arms, and running around in very tall stiletto heels. Blame director Linda Mendoza, who was handed a script so broad, obvious, and hackneyed that wouldnt cut it as a sit-com on the WB and yet somehow didnt run screaming from the meeting.
These women do exactly one smart thing when it comes to Tomas, but considering the fact that it takes our gals most of the film to figure it out and that a philodendron would have gotten there sooner, no points can be given. And yet, that’s not the worst sin. After exploiting the women of the piece by having them don increasingly skimpy clothes while doing increasingly demeaning things, we are handed the moral of the story, which is that ultimately it is looking good in short skirts that is important and the key to happiness, self-serving bits of dialogue to the contrary notwithstanding. If it weren’t all so inherently inane, it would be offensive. As the flick barely rises to the level of being a colorful bit of drivel, it’s merely annoying.
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