Sans nouvelles de Dieu

Needing a bit of comedy after the Danish film, Craig, I turn to the ever luscious Penelope Cruz who, along with Victoria Abril, are sure to delight.

To say that Cruz is hot is putting it mildly, as she plays an inhabitant of Hell who is sent to Earth to grab the soul of a losing, debt-ridden, boxer (Demián Bichir). Heaven sends their own representative and the battle is on.

Abril, who falls short of her most skintastic performance, nevertheless gives us a glimpse of her heavenly body as she plays the misogynistic boxer's wife. Cruz keeps it hot as she struts and dances, but does keep it on as the boxer's cousin. Why the bum doesn't stray is a big mystery.

Gael García Bernal (The Crime of Father Amaro, Bad Education, babel) plays the administrator of Hell, who becomes concerned about a corporate takeover by the rich, who are working to convince everyone that they are not really bad, but victims of society. Sides become blurred as the need to continue the existence of good and evil, and Heaven and Hell become more important that who gets the soul.

Fanny Ardant (8 Women, Paris, je t'aime), Elena Anaya (Van Helsing), and Gemma Jones (Bridget Jones Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason), and Elsa Pataky (Snakes on a Plane, Romasanta) all add to the fun.

Entertaining. Unique in style. It's a story about an angel from Heaven and a fallen angel from Hell who both compete over the soul of a boxer.

Penelope's role in this film is more of a far cry than in her previous roles. Normally, she is cast as a beautiful object of desire, as in Vanilla Sky, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, All the Pretty Horses and Woman on Top. She has even been cast as a slightly less-than-attractive, but still desired woman, as in Blow and Gothika. For the first time, Penelope Cruz is actually shot in an almost undesirable way in this film - even letting herself get beat up a couple of times. She does pull it off, and the film succeeds as an off-kilter dark comedy with that Hollywood "Heaven vs. Hell" factor added in.

It is worth it, if for nothing else, to see Penelope dance around her room "Travolta style" to the song "Kung-Fu Fighting".

Amusing film which is in four languages! Do your best to get an original copy, not a dubbed one. The language of hell is English, the language of heaven is French, the angels communicate to each other in Latin, and the language of Earth is Spanish. It's worth it just for that. Good acting, creative story and filming.

Many observers have noted that at first glance on paper one might think this is a Pedro Almodovar film, what with Victoria Abril cast in it, among other things. Well, I haven't seen too much of Almodovar's work, and I knew nothing about director Augustin Diaz Yanes when I entered the theatre to see this film. But I wonder, did Almodovar show such promise so early in his career? From the first few minutes I was captivated by the movie and I stayed enthralled throughout. By the time Penelope Cruz was dancing around to "Kung Fu Fighting" I knew this was a rare film indeed (and no, it's no rip-off of 'Pulp Fiction,' either!)

For all it's audaciousness, the premise has been used many times before. Like 'Paradise Lost,' the battlefield is Heaven, Hell and Earth. But the specifics are a little more prosaic: angels from Heaven and Hell fight for their survival over the soul of a rather ordinary mortal, a not-to-bright or personable boxer. Heaven and Hell are presented as distinctly mortal-like places--Heaven is nice, but hardly the celestial paradise we envision, and Hell is unpleasant, but nothing nearly as bad as Dante imagined. The two places are run like competing businesses, it would seem, and the CEO God (and presumably Satan in his own realm) is AWOL--apparently he's too tired or disinterested to bother with the details of running the place, leaving that task up to lesser creatures. Right now Hell seems to have the upper hand. Heaven is somehow almost bankrupt and may well go under if they can't snag this one earthbound soul, the aforementioned boxer, who fate has cast in some great future role that we never fully understand. But there's trouble brewing in Hell, too, and even though they've got the advantage over Heaven at the moment, there are internecine power struggles to worry about there. So each each side dispatches an agent to try to win over Manny, this boxer who unwittingly holds the fate of this world and those beyond in his hands.

That's where Abril and Cruz come in, and they are just a joy to watch for the almost two hours this flick runs. Abril is Lola the heavenly angel who ingratiates herself in Manny's life as his wife, and Cruz is Carmen, who poses as his long-lost cousin (Manny isn't the brightest crayon in the box so he can be convinced that all of a sudden he has a five-year marriage he doesn't remember.) Lola and Carmen thrust and parry throughout the film, but on a surprisingly cordial level--Carmen isn't as bad as one would expect a denizen of Hell to be and neither woman seems possessed of any otherworldly powers; they go about their business in a very earthly way. You combine a great script, two outstanding performances and excellent direction and not surprisingly you get a first-rate film, as good as any I've seen this year. This is not quite Orson Welles and 'Citizen Kane' here, but it put me in mind of it, it's that good.

Augustin Diaz Yates heaven-vs.-earth satire DON'T TEMPT ME is really NOTHING that hasn't been done before, and in better films. An angel from heaven (Victoria Abril) and an angel from hell (some Spanish chick named Penélope Cruz...lol!} fight over the soul of a brutish boxer (Demiån Bichir). The way the plot develops is predictable, as is the ending. But there are laughs around the way, most of them provided by Cruz. I can't begin to comprehend why she's such a dull, tedious, unconvincing actress in American films when she's proved to be such a vibrant, energetic and entertaining actress in Spanish films. And while she's made better films (BELLE EPOQUE, JAMON JAMON, LIVE FLESH, ABRE LOS OJOS and even the American ABRE remake VANILLA SKY), I think this is definitely her best performance yet. Her character is the most interesting and entertaining figure during the entire duration of the film, and one of the reasons she gets the biggest laughs is because the screenwriter gave her most of the best lines. The ridiculously talented and versatile Gael Garcia Bernal is a total hoot as a top CEO in hell who's a mix of Spike from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and Tony Shalhoub's eccentric shyster in THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE. He's so much fun that the movie is hurt because he's a supporting character who only appears in a few scenes, and so many of the lead characters are so one-note and tiring we keep waiting for him to show up more to liven things up. Anyways, this isn't a very good film, certainly one you may not remember for a long, but the good aspects in it kept me entertained...most of the time. B-