El tigre de Santa Julia

This movie deals with a baby who was thrown away of his house through the window and he fell down on a `maguey' (Mexican plant) since that moment all the movie is a complete joke. It is based on a true Mexican legend.

The Tiger of Santa Julia (the person) lived in Mexico City from 1908 to 1910 when Porfirio Diaz was Mexico´s president. He and three women rob rich people and gave the money to poor people. You watch sex between three women and one man. The sexy young girl is Yvonne Montero who also appears in `Asesino en serio'

I strongly recommend not to waste your money seeing this movie!!!. It a very low budget movie. This has been the worst movie I ever seen in my life. Bad plot, bad characters, bad actors, bad dialogues, bad sets, everything was awful.

With the sudden eruption of great Mexican films in the last few years, we are now being cheated upon thinking all Mexican films are worthy of a good review. This film, is not at all entertaining. With poor acting from most of the cast, a weak plot obviously drawn from Robin Hood, this movie proves to moviegoers that marketing can go much farther than the quality of a product. This movie starts off with the birth of Tigre, not wanted by his father who accuses his mother that the child isn't his, is tossed out of the window. With no idea how he grew up we see him arriving to his aunt's, a prostitute, house where he was sent to live. A very stupid conversation over a bottle of tequila convinces him of joining the army, where his best friend is killed in battle by his own captain. After defending a woman and killing the man who was beating her, a local journalist takes it upon his own to publish the story, with his own literary add-ons, and even invents Tigre's basis for his future in crime. Tigre accepting just to get revenge on the man who killed his friend who is now the police captain. He forms a posse o beautiful woman with whom he starts to steal from the rich to give to the poor. This is basically the whole story. Stupid situations, stupid problems with stupid solutions. Steer clear from this mexican movie and just wait to see what Alfonso Cuaron or Alejandro Gonzalez has in store for us in the future. One good tip is to stay away from films where most of the cast belongs to Mexican soap operas and unjustifiable nudity just to try to cash in at the box office.

Most of the time, Mexicans watch movies about American heroes, like The Patriot, but almost never we watch Mexican heroes. El Tigre de Santa Julia (The Tiger of Santa Julia) is a Mexican heroes. History happens to beginnings of 20th century. This movie tell us the history about a Man who was born in a small town in Mexico at 1880, He was left by his father when his mother died, 20 years later, he got to Santa Julia, another small town near to Mexico city, he went to find a better life, with few money and helped for her aunt, he join the Mexican army, but he discovered that they wasn't fighting against another army, they fought against people, people who disagree the government, an antidemocratic government. He refuse the army and star a band, like Robin Hood, they rob rich people to gave them to the poor people. All the other members of his band was female, because they were more loyal, and brave. This is a good movie, is funny, has action, and let us know about a Mexican heroes that many of us don't know.

Director's Gamboa is responsible for the teen saga La primera noche (The first night), La segunda noche, and the light comedy Educación sexual en breves lecciones (Sexual education in short lessons). And all this films have one thing in common: they feature mostly TV starlets; this means they can't hardly act, beyond soap opera's performances. Well then, apparently with El tigre de Santa Julia Gamboa tried to turn on a wilder side maybe in sake for his filmography. He didn't make it.

I know this movie is supposed to be only a fun one, based on a character that grew on México's mind as a legend because of the way he was caught. But, it seems that the whole story is only waiting for that event to happen, and constructed a lame screenplay on it's way for it. In result, we have a film with no climax, and not capable to create in us any root of interest for the people involved. Besides, the story is not that close to what some researchers have disclosed about the myth of the guy who became an outlaw. But that's not the worst part, it´s about bad acting and a pretentious narrative that describes mainly the brave (or shoul I say macho?) and horny side of the character. One more thing is that Gamboa once said that the aesthetics in the film are intentional in order to make it look like a comic book. Bad choice. The computer manipulated skies and open fields looks silly and aged, rather than extracted from a comics atmosphere; and I sure have seen good works on this subject -just take as an example The unbreakable, or Dobermann. In resume, El tigre de Santa Julia doesn't deliver what it promises; there ain't no action, no humor and even less climax. Of any kind.

Sure there´s been recently a fuss over mexican cinema, and even though there are some excellent films like Amores perros or Y tu mamá también, this one has nothing to do side to side with them. So don´t get fooled by the propaganda, and be aware if this boring kitty hits your town.