Fans of Oscar Hijuelo's 400 page Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love may well find this film version somewhat of a letdown. As adapted by Cuban-born Cynthia Cidre, the more simply titled The Mambo Kings, set in the early 1950s, is a colourful but overly familar tale about a couple of Cuban brothers who forsake their home town of Havana for the bright lights of New York where they quickly make a name for themselves peddling their infectious brand of Latino rhythms to an appreciative audience. Off stage, in the best (or perhaps worst) traditions of melodrama, the siblings' private lives are wracked with a predictable smattering of artistic angst and self doubt, and Cidre's schematic screenplay never passes up a chance to milk each cliche for its worth. As the cocky, womanising Cesar Castillo, Armand Assante is solid in a knowing, hyper-kinetic performance, while Antonio Banderas, a veteran of several Almodovar films, counters his co-stars showy barnstorming with an air of restrained vulnerability. On a purely visual level, the film couldn't be more alluring. Stuart Wurtzel's period settings and Ann Roth's costumes firmly consolidate the pic's verisimilitude, and debuting director Arne Gilmsher (producer of Gorillas In The Mist) deftly manoeuvers the spirited musical interludes to intoxicating effect.
