El cantante
Picturehouse Entertainment | Release Date: August 3, 2007 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
46
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 24 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
15
Negative:
3
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Anthony doesn't have a large emotional range as an actor, and neither does Lopez. Still, the musical numbers, which constitute a hefty portion of screen time, are thrilling. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerBill White
A special film, one that refuses to package a person's life into a comfortably familiar genre. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
It's a soaring, crashing, blazing affair with pyrotechnic performances by real-life spouses Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez as Lavoe and his wife, Puchi. Like a plane disaster, it holds you in thrall of ¡ay, Dios mio! drama. Read full review
70
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
A star isn't born in El Cantante as much as it's reconfirmed. She's still here, and she's still got it. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The music is the uncontested highlight of El Cantante. Read full review
63
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Biopic cliches hamstring producer-star Jennifer Lopez's pet project. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Unfortunately, the music is as irresistible as the tired story of a musician succumbing to substance abuse is resistible. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyScott Brown
Anthony, with his famished thousand-yard stare, turns in a delicate -- perhaps too delicate -- performance more informed by the shadow of Lavoe's death than the spark of his art. And his shrill domestic scenes with Lopez feel small and squalid, as we wait restlessly for the band to play us out. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Turns out to be nothing special. Well, the music is. The storytelling is not. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Anthony delivers a respectable performance, but his character never comes into sharp focus. Consequently, Lavoe emerges as a supporting character in his own story. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
It may be best to approach El Cantante less as a movie than as a two-hour promotional video for a must-have soundtrack album. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
The awkwardly told story of salsa legend Hector Lavoe, El Cantante doesn't even get the title right: It should have been called "La Esposa," since it's really less about the singer than his wife. Read full review
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
A sizzling soundtrack and Jennifer Lopez's best performance since "Out of Sight" go only so far in El Cantante, a downer of a musical biopic that leaves no cliché unturned. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
If you're a fan of Hector Lavoe and Latin music, or Lopez and Anthony, you'll want to see El Cantante for what's good in it. Otherwise, you may be disappointed. The director (Leon Ichaso) and his co-writers haven't licked a crucial question: Why do we need to see this movie and not just listen to the music? Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
"Everybody loved him. One woman understood him," goes the ad line. But the movie makes you wonder how anyone could love this screw-up and why anyone would have a problem understanding him. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Ideally, it would give you a sense of an entire people knocking the planet off its axis with a shake of their hips. If only El Cantante were that movie. Instead, it's a curiously sludgy cross between a Doomed Star biopic and a J. Lo vanity project. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
It's whenever the music stops that the movie runs into trouble. Read full review
42
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
Lopez can't decide if she's playing Lavoe's victim or enabler -- the movie sort of half blames her -- and neither of her characters is likable. The music's lovely, though. Read full review
40
VarietyRobert Koehler
A virtual template of every imaginable cliche of the musical biopic, picture suffers from a lack of narrative and character focus Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Unfortunately, there's little more than formula in Ichaso's El Cantante. Read full review
40
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Before long, El Cantante disintegrates into a stylized jumble -- even a straightforward jumble would have been preferable. Read full review
38
PremiereScott Warren
Ichaso seems far too interested in what led to Lavoe's downfall rather than what made him great. Read full review
30
Village VoiceRobert Wilonsky
Focusing almost solely on Lavoe's addictions (drugs and women, ho and hum), El Cantante is a garish, dispiriting bit of work--a mountain of biopic clichés snorted through the lens of a fidgety camera that never pauses long enough for us to get to like (or even know) the man responsible for making the Nuyorican sound a mainstream American commodity in the 1970s and early '80s. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The film doesn't make a case for Lavoe as an important artist. Read full review
More From This Movie

46 Critic Reviews

7.9 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL