How to Be a Latin Lover (2017)

Absolutely brilliant

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Why couldn't I move away from it while zapping on TV? Because it's funny! Not too gross, not over-predictable, not forced, and with really hilarious scenes, which is so rare these days (to say the least). Perhaps it's a bit too long and the pace slows down sometimes, or the plot comes dangerously close to mushy every now and then especially towards the closing, but all in all it's a good comedy. Obviously it has some predictable premise and situations, but they are treated in an intelligent way, which makes them really hilarious sometimes. It's a comedy, folks, it's not supposed to be rocket science or deep psychology, so it's refreshing to see such a theme treated with wit and decency as much as possible. It has excellent acting by the main actors (and, surprisingly, Rob Corddry), a good script, and perhaps some cuts would have transformed it in a very good comedy. As such it's only good.

My wife and I watched this on DVD from our public library. It has a rather low IMDb rating and I wasn't expecting much but it surprised me, it is very well made and very entertaining. A few of the sight gags fell flat for me but I'd say 75% of it worked.The opening scene sets the tone when we see the Mexican dad of little Maximo and Sara die in an accident. I won't spoil the details but I will describe it after "SPOILERS" at the end of my comments. Anyway seeing how his hard-working dad died just like that little 11-yr-old Maximo decides he wants a different life, he intends to find a wealthy older woman to marry so that he can live a life of luxury.The story cuts to 10 years later in California and an attractive, athletic Maximo in a skimpy swim suit finds his target at a resort. (In an interesting casting choice the actor is the 21-yr-old son of the actor who plays Maximo at age 46.)So cut to 25 years later and Maximo is a somewhat out-of-shape 46 (actor is 50-something) and with his elderly wife of 25 years he leads a life of luxury, has lots of expensive cars, has servants do everything for him. Until his wife finds a younger man and the prenup means Maximo is out on the street with nothing.So most of the story starts here, Maximo needs a place to stay while he hunts for his next wealthy wife, he looks up his sister Sara after all those years, meets his nephew Hugo. His life now really does become a comedy of errors and missteps. The movie works for several reasons. The first is director Ken Marino who keeps it all in a somewhat sympathetic manner, the bad people here aren't really that bad. Second the acting and comic timing of Eugenio Derbez who plays the 46-yr-old Maximo. And third the large number of friends of Marino who agreed to take roles in this movie. The main one is Salma Hayek who is really great as his adult sister Sara. And young Raphael Alejandro as Hugo who is mentored by uncle Maximo on how to be suave and get the girls.A very entertaining comedy for those in the mood for this type of entertainment.SPOILERS: In the opening scene it is made clear that Maximo's dad always said "You get what you work for, not what you wish for." He drove a truck and was gone often but this day Maximo and Sara, along with their mom, are waiting outside for dad as he drove his truck towards their home. But he was falling asleep, he crashed into the house as the family members scrambled to safety and went all the way through it. After a very short sigh of relief the fuel truck exploded with dad still inside. That set the tone for the rest of the movie, a bit dark, but comedic, on the slightly absurd side.

A nice bilingual comedy introducing Eugenio Derbez to American audiences starring alongside Selma Hayek and Rahpael Alejandro. Maximo is a gigolo that after twenty five years of marriage finds himself dumped for a younger man. Maximo must move in with his sister and nephew. Along the way he learns important lessons of friendship and family. Bonus points for Rob Lowe as a fellow gigolo and the scene in which he "plays" a cop complete with tear-a-way uniform. Another bit of trivia in the beginning of the film there is a younger Maximo that dives into the pool, that is Eugenio Derbez's twenty five year old son! Enjoyable rental - just be sure to watch with the captions unless you are fluent in Spanish.

"How to Be a Latin Lover" is a really new film from this year (2017) and at 115 minutes also a pretty long work. The director has several Emmy nominations, but the two writers are relatively inexperienced, but for that they did a good job. The story does include a bit of family drama, but it is really all about the comedy here from start to finish. Some bad guys, some good guys, some side-plots, some romance etc. basically all you would expect. The lead actor here is Eugenio Derbez and I must admit I have never heard of him before despite his really prolific and successful career. After all he plays the character in a film with Selma Hayek, Rob Lowe, Kristen Bell and Michael Cera and that's quite something. And I would say he did a decent job overall, even if he isn't really part in my favorite scene, the fake cop scene which was really hilarious. Oh yeah, Mckenna Grace is in here too and she deserves a mention too, not just because she plays her part very well, but also because she really shines in Gifted, another new film right now in which she plays a considerably bigger role. But back to this one here. Hayek's character, who was somewhat the only "normal" character really was a bit obsolete at times, also with her romance part, but I guess they needed here for the family conflict thingey, which was among the weaker parts of the film, but still okay I guess. And there is no denying how amazing she looks for her age. No surprise she plays a character a decade younger than she is. Same for Derbez, who also doesn't look his age.What I really liked about the main character is how he did not get together with Bell's character as you could have guessed at times in some kind of fairy tale story, but that he stays who he is and always has been when we see his new girlfriend at the very end. I also liked how they kept it low in terms of romance and even if people were falling in love on several occasions, it never felt that this is all it was about and that's definitely a good thing as it helped avoiding schmaltz permanently. All the actors did a pretty good jib here, even the ones I don't like that much in general and there's more than one fitting this description. I guess it was my loss that I have not come across Derbez so far, but I will keep my eyes open for him to appear in other stuff I am going to check out in the future. There are some jokes/moments that aren't working out really, but that's the case in every comedy and I am sure it also has a lot to do with my subjective perception. As a whole, I still give the film a thumbs-up because I believe the positive is more frequent than the negative and because I believe there is a good deal of creativity in the script here. Go see it. It also does not have too many lengths, if any at all, which is a good achievement for a running time like this, especially for comedies.