A cop thriller promoted as the first Latino superhero movie, “El Chicano” would seem to be arriving at the right time, with “Avengers: Endgame” having made the genre appear fail-proof and “Black Panther” recently proving that an ethnocentric tilt is among the paths to success. But Ben Hernandez Bray’s long-aborning debut feature, co-written with producer Joe Carnahan, turns out to be a pretty weak kickoff to a would-be franchise. It’s hardly fair to expect the production values of those top-shelf major studio efforts, but the problem here isn’t the fairly apparent budgetary limits — it’s the limitations of style and imagination.
Launching on 600 screens nationwide, “El Chicano” isn’t much distinguished by the fact that our less-than-super police hero sometimes wears an identity-hiding mask. Nevertheless, if the box office cooperates, the boilerplate origin story could at least lead to sequels that hopefully take greater risks and demonstrate more personality.
Launching on 600 screens nationwide, “El Chicano” isn’t much distinguished by the fact that our less-than-super police hero sometimes wears an identity-hiding mask. Nevertheless, if the box office cooperates, the boilerplate origin story could at least lead to sequels that hopefully take greater risks and demonstrate more personality.
- 5/3/2019
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
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