THE MAMBO KINGS
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1992 Frank Maloney
THE MAMBO KINGS is a film directed by Arne Glimcher. The screenplay is by Cynthia Cidre. It stars Armand Assante, Antonio Banderas, Cathy Moriarty, Maruschka Detmers, and features several Latin music greats, including Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, and others. It is rated R for simulated sex, nudity, and some violence.
THE MAMBO KINGS is derived Oscar Hijuelos' novel THE MAMBO KINGS PLAY SONGS OF LOVE. By all reports something was lost in the translation from print to screen. However, what survives is a pleasant, likable movie with two wonderful performances, several interesting character performances, and a lot of first rate Latin music of the early Fifties.
It is both unfortunate and a saving coincidence that AMERICAN ME and MAMBO KINGS opened on the same Friday. AMERICAN ME, which I reviewed separately, is the superpessimistic view of the Mexican- Americans of East Los Angeles. MAMBO KINGS is a rather fluffy, optimistic paean to the success of Cubans in the United States. It is nostalgic and sentimental. At its best, it is the love story of two brothers who have good cause to leave Cuba for New York and who start their own mambo band there. As such, it may be an anecdote to the emotional hangover of the other movie, or its fluffiness may be seem more than so that it really is.
The brothers are literally overnight successes, but then the usual predicaments and impediments slow down their rise to fame and fortune. On the way we have admirable performances from Armand Assante as Cesar and Antonio Banderas as his brother Nestor. Assante is an actor who seems mostly to have been fated to playing maniac heavies, usually a drug lord with an attitude. Here he develops a complex portrait of Cesar, the ambitious Mambo King who despite his hunger to succeed stands up for personal freedom. Assante reminds me to a remarkable degree of Robert DeNiro, there being a physical resemblance, but ever more importantly a similarity in the intensity and energy he brings to his performance.
Banderas, who has starred in several of Pedro Almodovar's Spanish films, turns in another excellent performance; this is Banderas' first English-language role. His portrait is of a Nestor who is a real artist in turmoil, whose internal sufferings inform and inspire his art. He is sweet, a little passive, and a late-comer to rebellion against his domineering brother.
It is no small part of the charm of this slight movie that we get some fine performances by Tito Puente and the fabulous Celia Cruz, whose smile could light up all the Havanas of the world. We also get an extended cameo, if that's the expression, by Desi Arnaz, Jr., playing his father. And as a special treat Arnaz and the Mambo Kings are seamlessly edited into an episode of I Love Lucy.
There's a lot of love in this movie, love of brothers, love of the music, love of Cuban culture.
It's an enjoyable and worthwhile escape and as such I can recommend it at matinee prices, but don't, as I did, see it too close to seeing AMERICAN ME.
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney .
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