Without Men

Get your friends, get your popcorn and simply sit back and relax. The film is lighthearted, funny and vivacious, Eva Longoria shows she can indeed carry a movie, Christian Slater is so charismatic and especially Fernanda Romero sticks out in the cast. A new star is born. A town without men bares its challenges an when even the priest fails to keep the women in line and his fertility is an issue, you know you are in for an interesting ride. Tagliavini proves herself as a savvy screenwriter AND director both, sticks close to the book, yet gives its own strength and colors. The cinematography is stunning...matched by wonderful score. All in all simply a movie to love.

I try to avoid writing negative reviews and never have I rated a movie 1 out of 10. There's always a first. From the pathetic story to the terrible acting, this is the biggest waste of time ever. It makes out like Christian Slater has a big role...alas, he has minimal screen time. Without rambling on, give this one a big miss.

The creators of this film seemed to believe that the heavy sexual undertones and half clothed women would carry this film. They were mistaken.

The movie begins with Christian Slater, a reporter stuck scrounging for a story, coming across a journal of Oscar Nunez (Oscar from The Office). Oscar describes a village that had all of it's men carried away to fight in a war which left all of the women to fend for themselves. Considering many of them can't read or write, or even change a light bulb, this would be no easy task. Eva Longoria declares herself mayor and tries to get everyone to work together to build the Utopian town of women.

From the beginning this movie was hard to sit through. It became obvious very early on that the movie would not be carried on it's own but rather gambled on the fact that the hope of seeing girl on girl action would keep the viewer in their place. I cringed at the thought that Christian Slater, Oscar Nunez, and Eva Longoria actually read this script and went on board to make this ridiculous movie.

The acting and storyline were bad and the only thing I came away with is wishing I could have that part of my life back. I would have rather gotten the laundry caught up.

I truly do not understand the negativity towards this film at all, it dosen't deserve such a low rating. The premise of an entire town of women is carried out pretty well, I can see how some might be offended by the female characters not being able to read or wanting to do work, but if you can look past that, you'll see a charming, witty(funniest part for me was the women learning the joys of masturbation), lighthearted film with warm and likable characters, the relationship between Eva and Castillo is truly beautiful and heartwarming. There's also some interesting social commentary and female customs, for example, the women decide to make up their own time of 28 suns instead of 30 days(to go along with a women's cycle), the male performers do an adequate job, though their shortsided(understandable given the premise)Oscar Nunez is a hoot as the impotent priest and Slater does well enough as the straight man, all in all this film was a very pleasant surprise and I would highly recommend it.

Some movies beg indulgence form the audience. This movie should beg forgiveness from the people who financed it. Based on a novel by James Canon and adapted for the screen and directed by Gabriela Tagliavini, the story (what little there is of it) concerns the women of a remote Latin American town who are forced to pick up the pieces and remake their world when all the town's men are forcibly recruited by communist guerrillas. They are devastated that they have to do 'men's work' such as cleaning the town and governing the village. The local priest (Oscar Nuñez) prays to God and is instructed that he must populate the village with new men by sleeping with all the women of childbearing age. Unable to perform his duties, he is ostracized. One woman (Eva Longoria) becomes mayor and the women gradually make the town a women's place - yes, even to the point of deciding that physical relationships between women are just fine and clothing is optional. A side bar story that simply doesn't fit is the presence of a reporter (Christian Slater) who is sent by his boss (Camryn Manheim) to get a front page article about the little town of only women. Et cetera.....

The lines these poor actors are giving are so poor that they are embarrassing, but the level of acting in general is on the junior high school level. Slater has so little to do that it seems as though he was hired simply to sell tickets in the theaters. This is a 'must miss' little bit of deflated fluff.

Grady Harp