From NetFlix:
Stuck working on a banana ranch, two super competitive soccer-playing brothers dream of getting off the farm and finding stardom: Beto (Diego Luna) as a pro goalie and Toto (Gael García Bernal) as a singer — but it might break them. When a professional soccer team ignores Beto’s goalie skills in favor of Toto’s fancy footwork, Beto signs on to a rival team, and the battle between brothers is on. Carlos Cuarón directs this comedy.
In Spanish “rudo” means rough or rude whereas “cursi” means precious or fussy or affected. The soccer culture in Mexico City nicknames Beto as “rudo” and Toto as “cursi”. If there were not such large numbers of people, especially crowds, involved, you might think of this as an independent film. You watch two hicks (apparently anyone who is not from Mexico City is a “hick”) get taken by a talent scout to the city to play soccer. Toto fancies himself a singer (he is not that good). The story is the usual rise and fall of two country boys in the big city. At first I thought “I’m never going to last this whole film”. But the details are somewhat captivating: just sit back and watch the happening (think “Rake’s Progress”).
It is not just the language that is Spanish. Notable are the extreme emotional reactions, especially anger, in most cases. If the movie fairly represents the culture of soccer and Mexico City, then corruption touches every aspect of life: team manager decisions are motivated by bribes, gamblers try to get players to lose on purpose, players are lured into gambling and losing big time, camp followers only sleep with the winning players, players are introduced to drugs, and the list goes on.
WARNING: The script is very, very vulgar. Crowds yell amazing and unprintable streams of taunts and invitations to the players. There is nudity such as female breasts and initiation scenes in the mens’ shower rooms. There is only once fairly modest sex scene.
Constant excitement kept me interested. In fact there is never a calm moment. This is NOT a soccer mom’s film. Have fun!
Tantos buenos actores y actrices desperdiciados en una comedia dramática. Seguramente ellos sabían que iban a hacer una sátira, burlándose de algunas fijaciones de la cultura popular mexicana. La película no fue hecha para ganar premios sino para llegar al gusto del pueblo. Espero que hayan alcanzado su objetivo.
So many good actors and actresses wasted in a comedic drama. Surely they knew they were going to make a satire, making fun of certain fixations of Mexican popular culture. The film was not made to win prizes but to play to popular tastes. I hope they have reached their goal.
En mi opinión la película es una sátira, exagerada. Sin embargo aunque la prostitución no es legal tampoco es un crimen. Respecto a la corrupción en el futbol al día de hoy no es posible, porque si saliera a luz pública los participantes estarían en la cárcel por fraude. Respecto a las drogas es tópico muy interesante pero desafortunadamente no tengo información. Pero en México todos los deportistas pasan por la prueba de dopaje, es decir que prácticamente no es posible la sugerencia de la película.
In my opinion, the film is an exaggerated satire. Nevertheless although prostitution is not legal, it is a crime. With respect to curruption in soccer, these days it is not possible because if anything of this nature came to light before the public, the participants would be in jail for fraud. With respect to drugs I have no information on this topic. But in Mexico all athletes must take drug tests which is to say what happened in the film [ed: Rudo uses cocaine] would not be possible.
En mi opinión estoy de acuerdo en que se legalice todo tipo de comercio incluyendo prostitución y drogas. No voy a consumir estos productos pero espero que paguen impuestos.
In my opinion I agree with legalizing drugs and prostitution. I won’t use these products but I would like the participants to pay taxes on such.