Benjamin Bratt (Miss Congeniality, Bound by Honor) plays Miguel Pinero in this documentary/biographical tale of the Puerto Rican poet who rose to fame with his poetry and inevitably fell from grace by a brutal drug addiction and liver disease and died at forty in the late eighties though revered by culture and poets everywhere.
    This chronicles Pinero's life and loves with constant intermissions and Bratt electrically performs Pinero's poetry aloud still remaining in character. We get to see some of his major drug binges and constant affairs with his friends and on and off again prostitute girlfriend Sugar (Talisa Soto  Mortal Kombat, Vampirella) who looks gorgeous and gives a good supporting performance. Benjamin Bratt is excellent and charismatic as the charming and poetic Pinero who seemed to spout poetry everytime he talked. He's incredible and is possibly the best thing about watching this movie. Often times I forgot this was Bratt who usually plays more dignified authority figures and hides himself under heavy make-up and a thick beard. His best scenes are where he performs Pinero's poetry among rooftops. The poetry didn't leave an impression but Bratt's handling of it gave the movie a lot of texture and depth. Mandy Patinkin gives a good supporting role playing Joe Papp, a friend of Pinero's and manager at a theater who helps Pinero create his controversial play "Short Eyes" which gained a lot of Tony nods. We often see Pinero performing his Television roles in Miami Vice and Kojak and watch as he rises to fame and quickly swoops to poverty and his in and out jail trips. Leon Ichaso (Hendrix, Sugar Hill) wrote and directed the movie and does a really good job of making this movie seem just as poetic as Pinero was with constant flashbacks into his trouble life and his relationship with his mother played by Rita Moreno (Westside Story).

This is possibly the most grueling movie I've ever had to endure because it's simply dull; I thought biographical movies were supposed to be interesting yet this isn't. If Pinero was a much of a genius as this movie proclaims him to be then he gets the short end of the stick because this is simply a lot of nothing. The movie drags on for minute after minute with nothing even remotely interesting happening. We watch as we can see most of the actors struggling to act within this bore of a movie and I struggled to stay awake. At certain times I contemplated turning the channel but then I couldn't do this review. The poetry in which Bratt performs isn't interesting and it never really left me thinking nor did it leave me in awe; it was just sad. Pinero is a sad figure in poetic history but then again what poetic author wasn't? I felt Rita Moreno and Talisa Soto gave great performances but they're grossly underused and misused in basically thankless roles. Moreno is an interesting character as when Pinero's father leaves the kids she attempts to bring some optimism into their lives. At times I was just bored by the slow story and uninteresting events that chronicled this man's life. Leon Ichaso tries really hard to make this seem artsy by giving occasional black and white sequences and the performances of Pinero's poetry, but it comes off as trite and desperate. True, some may say the whole point of the movie was that Pinero was basically a sad man. If that is what this movie was meant to be then, it worked.

An intriguing movie with an excellent performance by Bratt but is ultimately dull, slow, and completely uninteresting and fails to bring anything to the screen. I'm spent.