RUDO Y CURSI Review

Simply one of my favorite movies this year. Another excellent achievement by the people behind Y Tu Mama Tambien. RUDO Y CURSI is funny and goes straight for the jugular. I’ve never seen a story about… what riches can do to people simply told quite like this. A crowd pleaser! Great performances by Gael Garcia Benal and Diego Luna who are an unstoppable duo. The makes you want to reflect on the things you do have and the things you don’t need in life.

Tato (Gael García Bernal) and Beto (Diego Luna), two brothers living a hard life of manual labor in rural Mexico, have a simple dream of saving enough money to build their mother her dream house. But fate has other plans; a friendly game of soccer leads to first one, then the other being taken on by the nation’s top talent scout, Batuta, and gives rise to the first of many emotional head to heads between brothers. Suddenly, they find themselves living the high life of star athletes—fame, riches, fast cars, and beautiful women. But every dream has a dark side, and when they are forced to compete on rival teams, bitterness brews between them. Mutual trust gives way to resentment and betrayal, while the dangers of their wild new lifestyles threaten debt and the safety of their entire family. In the end, all will ride on the one big game between their two clubs. Tato and Beto must face each other on the pitch but also reunite again as brothers before they lose everything they had once dreamed of.

Writer/director Carlos Cuaron seems to get the talent for his brother Alfonso Cuaron. He might live up to the same success too, given time. His direction is fast but on target, you can tell both actors are comfortable in their roles and pretty much understand what it is that’s expected of them. You see the characters change mood from one second to another and the situation can change from comical to intense drama within minutes, director Cuaron makes sure that the build up is just right and when we get to that top conflict, it’s something so surreal and difficult, you won’t know how to find your way down until the conclusion presents itself, one that would makes you feel lesson is learned. I enjoy the structure and can’t wait for Cuaron’s future projects.

I have to make some time to recognize the talents that are Gael Garcia Benal and Diego Luna. Gael strikes a goal with his character who’s good at something but wanting something else he’s not good at, along the way he gets easily fooled by the woman he thinks would love him back. On the other side of the field is Luna, who will crack you up and all because of his short temper and he’s easily envious which is what probably motivates his gambling habit. You’d see Luna’s face turned from anger to jealousy when he doesn’t get what he wants. The chemistry between Benal and Luna would be one that can only be described as the Mexican Lemmon/Mathau, I know it’s quite a stretch but Benal and Luna seem like two best friends who can act together for the rest of their lives, just like how Pacino and John Cazale were back in the 70s.

The themes of RUDO Y CURSI are in plain sight, but the perfect execution is what makes them great to watch on screen. These two characters are what you’d consider people who don’t know how to handle riches, they’ve been poor all their lives and when they struck it big, it’s like having a culture shock and uncontrollable spending is what ensues. It goes to show that living wealthy has its consequences. Only the responsible will survive. The reckless will find themselves back to square one.
It’s funny as well to see how all they ever want to do is to please their mothers and they can’t even do that too. Their rise and fall are the essence of what makes RUDO Y CURSI one of the best, most entertaining movies of the year.

* Place the cursor on the image below to check my grade for this film