Musical turns into song of disaster

The downward spiral for the main characters in El Cantante begins in the first scenes, so all director Leon Ichaso can do to distract from the depressing story of salsa king Hector Lavoe is put as much exuberance into the music as he can.

He fills his movie with so many chart-busting hits, El Cantante almost feels like a party film. But the music is as irresistible as the story of a musician succumbing to substance abuse is tired.

What can you do with a character whose own wife admits that the greater he becomes as an artist, the deeper he sinks as a human being? Real-life husband and wife Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez provide the chemistry – albeit the combustible kind – as Lavoe and his wife of 20 years, Puchi.

And Anthony's re-recordings of Lavoe's classics bring great energy to the movie. Even so, El Cantante may struggle to attract an audience beyond fans of the music and of the stars who re-create the tragedy behind such happy songs.

The framing device in the screenplay is an interview, shot in black and white, given by Puchi some time after her husband's death.

The movie keeps you at arm's length from its characters, possibly because the filmmakers don't understand them, either. The couple fights over the wrong things as drugs eat away at their bodies and souls. A son, Tito, is seen at various ages, but you get no idea of what family life may be like for the Lavoes. Or if such a thing exists at all.