Gangsteroctopus

With his blocky, pug-ugly features and slightly-going-soft bodybuilder physique, Bernal is most often relegated to villains' roles in low budget Mexican exploitation films, playing murderous cyborgs, bloodthirsty Satanists and the like. But here, for once, he gets to play the hero, the titular character, Chano. (It's likely not a coincidence that Bernal also directed the film.) At the risk of being un-PC or even offensive (and to quote from "Tropic Thunder") Bernal, in this role, goes "full-on retard." I'm not talking cuddly Sean Penn in "Sam I Am" mentally disabled. I mean, he is quite literally a drooling mental retardate. And not just a little bit of spittle every now and then - we're talking bulldog/St. Bernard quantities of slobber, almost literally foaming at the mouth at times, projectile drooling at bad guys, Old Yeller stuff. It must be seen to be disbelieved. He also talks in a high-pitched, sing-songy, 'huh-muh-muh-muh' stereotyped Downs Syndrome jabber that can be more than a little hard to take (some of his co-stars' discomfort is obvious at times).

So, Chano (Bernal) apparently makes his living picking through garbage, and it's in one of these huge Mexico City trash heaps (where we first see him thumbing through a back issue of the controversial - in this country, anyway - 'Memin') that he comes across a discarded pin-up poster of a scantily-clad Paty (Patricia) Munoz. Naturally, he instantly falls madly in love with her.

Not that I can blame him. Munoz is, indeed, a knock-out, looking like something the Hernandez Brothers ('Love & Rockets') might have drawn - except that she's a flesh-and-blood woman. She also disdains brassieres (despite her impressive mammarial qualifications - they look like 44DDs, by my eyeball estimate), spending the bulk of the film's running time in a tight white t-shirt and Daisy Dukes. Sadly, she does no actual nudity in this film, though she comes close in an egregious bubble bath scene. (I call it egregious because it is tastelessly intercut with her son's kidnapping; otherwise, pretty much any excuse to see this woman in the tub is a'ight by me.) The plot concerns Munoz's douche-bag gangster ex-husband kidnapping their son and taking him away to his large suburban compound. Chano and Munoz - alone! - then attempt a rescue.

The movie is by turns violent and somewhat lurid, unashamedly sentimental and loaded with bathos, laughable and titillating - on other words, pretty much what anyone looks for in a Mexican exploitation film.

Let me start off by saying that I actually like a lot of the old B-movie cheapie film series, like 'Boston Blackie,' 'The Falcon,' 'The Saint,' et.al. - just so you know that I'm not some ADD-addled kid who can't sit still unless a movie is edited like it's been thrown into a blender by Michael Bay.

But, c'mon, let's be serious: this is a pretty terrible film, on almost every level.

First off, Warner Baxter looks awful. Every time one of the women in the film talks about how he's "good-looking," you have to laugh. I realize that in real life Baxter had had a nervous breakdown and was suffering terribly from arthritis (so much so that he eventually had a lobotomy - ! - to relieve the pain). But then the writers should have either cut the lines where women comment on his looks, or the producers should have cast a different actor in the role.

And to be honest, appearance aside, Baxter is a really underwhelming screen presence: his voice quavery, his manner hesitant, his whole demeanor uncommitted. He looks and acts a LOT older than 54. He seems to be barely able look any of the other actors in the eye. (Pretty everyone else in the entire film comes off better than Baxter, in terms of their performances - it's astonishing to think that he once won an Oscar.) I know I should feel sorry for the guy, but that's no reason to let him ruin what might have been a memorable recurring character.

The only reason that I didn't give this film a one-star rating is because it DOES have an initially intriguing premise, one that seems to anticipate "A History of Violence," among other more interesting films. But the writers quickly botch any sense of intrigue, completely throwing the story off the rails with all kinds of irrelevant tangents and sub-plots (how can a 64-minute film have this many sub-plots?), like the various criminals (female thief, disgraced Air Force officer) with whom Dr. Ordway deals with in the course of his work. These little side-stories have NO relevance whatsoever to the main story, adding nothing at all to it and, to boot, are uninteresting and insipid. Get back to the amnesia thread, you idiot writers!

This is not to mention all of the improbabilities and convenient 'coincidences' that occur throughout the story, further stretching credulity well past the breaking point. (Two of Ordway's former cronies just happening to be in a nightclub where Ordway is with his fiancé, then one of them breaks a glass accidentally, requiring medical attention and, of course, Ordway is the only doctor present - yeah, right.)

And why, for example, do Ordway's former partners in crime keep insisting to themselves that Ordway is faking the amnesia? For TEN YEARS he keeps up this charade, goes through medical school, gets a psychiatry degree, sets himself up in private practice, instead of just absconding with the loot and skipping town - say WHAT? How in the hell does that make any sense at all?

I'll only mention in passing how poorly directed this film is, especially in regards to the pacing in the dialogue. Actor A, for example, says something, Actor B ponders these words for what feels like an eternity, then eventually, slowly responds - aaaarrrgh!

Another reviewer has said that this is actually the least of the 'Crime Doctor' series, so maybe I'll give the next installment a chance (I recorded a bunch of them off of TCM), although I am not overly sanguine, and I still think that Warner Baxter is TERRIBLE.