Hazlo Como Hombre

The acting was very exaggerated even for a comedy. But I had a few LOL moments with the movie.

Just as I think of the movie Jeffrey as being set in an alternate 1995 where everyone in New York City is gay friendly, Hazlo Commo Hobre seems to be set in an alternate 2017 Mexico City where where only one guy in all of Mexico City seems to be homophobic (not counting some trash talk from sports opponents). Just random strangers question Jeffrey's reluctance to have another boyfriend, and the particular one he's met who is HIV+, none of Raúl's friends and relatives understand his reaction to his friend being gay. It also reminds me of the Saturday Night Live fake commercial showing parents of gay children popping pills that treat homophobia.

I have a soft spot for movies centered around male friendship, even nonsexual; that's one of the many reasons I identify as a gay man. I liked the rough macho affection between Raúl and Santiago, and was really rooting for their friendship to survive. I like how his loyalty is unwavering and his homophobia takes the form of disbelief and of ham-handed attempts to cure his friend of what he sees as an illness. The only similar movie I recall ever seeing is Date and Switch (2014).

The reported cursing was toned down somewhat in the English subtitles for the U.S. release. I caught just enough of the Spanish dialog to notice a couple of times when words like "jerk" and "idiot" were translated from p--- and m------ words I think are a little stronger, and maybe I missed the even more colorful stuff because I'd never heard those words at all. And speaking of offense, contrary to one reviewer being offended on my behalf and the disclaimers in the closing titles I wasn't fluent enough to fully read, I for one was not offended by anything in the movie, and I found it refreshing that Santiago didn't conform to any gay stereotypes (in my culture anyway) and that his straight friend Eduardo kind of did. (I do in turn feel offended on behalf of women when the guys refuse to forego one last video game to set the table for the meal the women are implied to have cooked, and I imagine they don't appreciate the attitude Raúl expresses about women in his brags.)

I admit that 'Hazlo como hombre' made me laugh a lot, as I'm very much into black comedies with sexual humor throughout. And I also felt a little uncomfortable because I went to see it with my mom who hates that kind of humor (I advice you not to see it with your parents at all costs).

Mauricio Ochmann did a great job as the hateful big male with a mind full of stereotypes against women and of course, against gays too. In general all the performances were good for what this movie is, and well, the very criticized performance of Aislinn Derbez, was sometimes even frightening for me, despite of being exaggerated. The rest of the cast did a nice job.

The script was gross but hilarious for me because as I said before, I have seen a few more films of that type of humor and I could perfectly handle with it.

But however, even tough it has the good intentions of create conscience about all the prejudices and stereotypes against homosexuality that Mexico has nowadays, the way these things are portrayed isn't the best, because the struggles of accepting something so strong like being gay is played in a way that, although probably not as cartoonish as it could have been, it is played in a very superficial way that leaves the viewer with a big doubt: if this movie is really in favor of being tolerant with everyone and to accept who we are, or if what this movie is really in favor with is the idea that no matter what we do, our thoughts about anything will never change, including the bad ones.

Overall, I recommend to see this only for the humor and the nice performances, but only that. Don't buy a ticket for this if you think you're going to see a movie with a great message for everyone because believe me, you will be disappointed.

Thanks for reading!

P.S. It goes without saying that this is one of the films that I would less recommend you to see if you're gay. I'm not, but if you are, you'll be probably wondering as long as you got out of the theater: "WTF was that?"

Only this time, it is also full of clichés, stereotypes, and what he considers to be "open mindedness", but ends up being the complete opposite.

Awful acting as usual with most of his movies.

Avoid at all costs.

This is a terrible and offensive film. Under the guise of pretending to be supportive, tolerant, and modern, it dredges up every old homophobic reaction and wallows in them endlessly until it dawns on the viewer that the offensive stuff is the point. The supportive pretense is just window dressing so that the filmmakers can spend 90% of this film trying to wring laughs out of ignorance, conversion therapy, fear, bullying, and fighting. Instead of making gayness the brunt of jokes, like a dreadful film from the 1950s, it would have been far more interesting for 3 friends - one of whom has just come out - to tackle a nongay situation together and watch them change, grow, make mistakes, and in the end realize it is no big deal - their friendship is the big deal. Instead we get writing that is abysmal, characters that are mostly stereotypes, and extreme overacting like they're playing clowns 🤡 at the circus. Tbh, it got so annoying I bailed midway through. This is definitely not comic: it's a dreadful and offensive mess.