This 2008 film from the newly formed film production company of Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna follows two brothers (played by García Bernal and Luna) who get caught up in fame and an extreme case of sibling rivalry. Starting out as banana farmers they are discovered by a talent agent and begin to play professional soccer. They are swept away by fame and it eventually takes over their lives.I must confess that I was expecting something a little bit better, especially coming from such big names such as García Bernal and Luna. The plot line is interesting but the characters themselves were somewhat annoying. García Bernal's Cursi and Luna's Rudo are both overly immature – they fight with each other and whine when they don't get their way, even though they are grown men! It seems like there is no depth to the characters and it is hard to find any redeeming qualities.The only deeper meaning to be found throughout the movie comes in the form of a voice- over commentary made by the talent scout at various points throughout the movie making comparison between life and the game of soccer. I get the connections, but the movie is still lacking some serious character development.

Rudo Y Cursi is a foreign dramedy about two brothers who are competing with each other to get recognition for winning a soccer competition. It sure as hell does not have the hot-blooded passion of Y tu mamá también, but it's a great comeback for both of the stars of that. This is one of those rare sports movies that doesn't have all the sappy, maddening moments of clichés. It chooses a nice path and commits to it. It's a fast-paced, fun but ultimately forgettable film, a nice comeback for Luna and Bernal that you'll forget walking out of the theater. Yes, it won't have you talking for days, but in the theater, at the heat of the moment, you'll sure as hell enjoy it. Bernal and Luna are also both very likable, they have a certain charm, even when they're fighting with each other. The movie never takes a back turn for the worse, or even for the best, and that's what I like in it. There's a certain entertainment in watching these two go head to head. Bernal and Luna both make sparks off each other, which is definitely the most enjoyable aspect of the film. We need more movies like this these days, a fun, likable film that you don't have to remember or listen to someone else talk about because it's simply just simple, forgettable, and recommendable fun.

Against the backdrop of a professional women's baseball league, Penny Marshall's "A League of their Own" is best remembered for its sibling rivalry between wartime sisters Dottie(Geena Davis) and Kip Keller(Lori Petty), who goes head-to-head in the big game, a prerequisite of the inspirational sports film that completes the genre's form. Disparate from John G. Avildsen's "Rocky", and other movies of its ilk, in which nobody would have mourned Apollo Creed(Carl Weathers) had he lost, Marshall's film is unique because you're divided, happy as you are for Kip, the moviegoer also sympathizes with the loser(well, that's what the film is calibrated for), Dollie, who drops the ball after Kit blows off the third base coach's signal to stop, and proceeds to run roughshod over her sister in a violent homeplate collision. After all, Dollie was responsible for Kip's career. Similarly, in "Rudo y Cursi", it's the loser you feel for, Tato(Gael Garcia Bernal), whose penalty kick is blocked by his brother Beto(Diego Luna), who unlike Kip, loses too, while seemingly the victor, because he was supposed to throw the game. In both films, albeit circumstantially different, there are no winners where a winner is the genre norm. "Rudo y Cursi" is a sports film without catharsis, which puts this Mexican import in the same league as Antonio Cuaron's recent "Sugar", another underdog sports story that ends on a decidedly different key from its Hollywood counterparts.Neither Davis nor Petty(or Madonna for that matter) had a lick of baseball talent, but through the magic of rhetorical editing(quick cuts), wishful thinking prevailed, and the audience became co-conspirators in the fiction that Davis could swing for the fences with regularity, while Petty took the mound with an arsenal of effective pitches. In "Rudo y Cursi", when Batua the scout(played by Gullimero Francella) gauges the brothers' potential in a pick-up soccer game, he's the only witness, because the camera stays on him, having a cold one. This directorial choice is made time and time again, a self-reflexive and humorous aside about actors faking athletic greatness, as the moviegoer never actually sees Tato score a goal, nor Beto successfully defend the net; the moviegoer sees reaction shots, instead of first-hand accounts of athletic mimicry. There's no need for a double to do the tricky stuff(e.g. Moira Kelly and D.B. Sweeney's doubles in "The Cutting Edge"); there's nobody to double for. The montage, the most expedient way to persuade the audience that the actor is excelling at his/her sport(best recent example: Hillary Swank in Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby"), gets parodied in a scene where the soccer ball in quick succession, hits the back of the net from the off-screen leg of Tato, kicking in the negative space. When the benchwarmer finally sees some game action and scores his first goal, the moviegoer sees his family, in unison, shouting, "Goal!" instead of Bernal putting his best foot forward, literally, in a diegetically enhanced fantasy camp for actors. Not satisfied with only its atypical approach towards depicting sports in a sports movie, "Rudo y Cursi" is no etnography(like Gregory Nava's "El Norte", or "Mi Familia"), in which a western audience expects Tato and Beto to act in an explicitly prescribed way.More likely than not, the filmic norm of "wetbacks" in most narratives about the Hispanic culture, shows its people as the conscientious sort who send money back home to their destitute families they left behind. Arguably, in "Rudo y Cursi", the brothers go "gringo", as Tato lavishes his high maintenance girlfriend with exorbitantly priced gifts(for starters, a SUV), while Beto gambles his money away at back-room casinos. Where's mama's SUV; where's mama's house, the one that her sons promised to build for her? Mama does eventually get the house of her dreams, but not from her American-like sons. Like Ridley Scott's "American Gangster", mama gets her house from a gangster, her daughter's husband. Tato and Beto are people like us: Americans, "football" players who have American football player counterparts.(Tato could be Tony Romo, a player distracted by her excessively attractive celebrity girlfriend, while Beto could retired quarterback Art Schlichter, who had a severe gambling problem while throwing passes for the Baltimore Colts in the early-eighties.)

"Rudo y Cursi" is about two brothers that are plucked from obscurity in a small village in Mexico to play professional soccer. One is a striker and the other is a goalie. But drop any notion that this story has much to do with the actual sport of soccer. It's much more about success and what this does to people. And even in that regard its fairly clichéd -- one brother gets a sexy girlfriend who makes him buy cars for her and the other brother gambles his money away. By the end of the story their money is gone and they aren't even any wiser. So what's the point? Rudo y Cursi is obscene and cynical, frantic, funny and somehow disturbing. Lots of loud music and quick cutting and jittery camera work. There are some great performances in it and the locations are outstanding. It captures the look, feel and smell of Mexico. But you walk out thinking the world is a rotten place and people are pretty horrible.