It helps that he also has the two young stars of "Y Tu Mama," reunited for the first time since that breakthrough. In the first film, Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna played reckless teenagers getting high on sex and bravado. Here, they're just boneheads - country bumpkin half-brothers who miraculously get a shot at futbol stardom just when it seems their options are winding down.
Beto (Luna) is nicknamed "Rudo" for his hotheaded behavior in and out of the goal box; he's not above punching out opposing players if it'll even the odds. Tata (Bernal) is the dreamer, a wannabe singer and full-time little boy whose delighted victory dance after scoring goals earns him the nickname "Cursi," roughly translated as "tacky but kind of cute." Discovered when an opportunistic sports agent (Guillermo Francella) has a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, they're whisked off the banana plantation into the big time. The agent's weary narration provides the film with its philosophy of self-interest.
The joke isn't that Rudo and Cursi are woefully unprepared for fame but that the entire country is high on the fumes of empty celebrity and fast bucks. Both the agent and the sexy TV superstar (Jessica Mas) who becomes Cursi's trophy girlfriend let slip their pasts as nobodies clawing their way out of poverty. Rudo's wife conscripts her husband into a pyramid sales program (a satirical version of a real-life Mexican company) even as the goalie's ears prick up at the siren call of the gambling table.
What matters is only the next goal, the next winning streak, the next hit record. For the endearingly fatuous Cursi, the peak arrives with his accordion-driven music video of the old Cheap Trick hit "I Want You to Want Me," delivered with Spanish lyrics that become the movie's taunting refrain. For all the cockfights and cauterizingly foul language, everyone here is terrified of being lost in the crowd.
