DON'T TEMPT ME

Here’s a great example of a movie brimming over with potential, but one that doesn’t *quite* use all of its fantastic elements to create a work of sheer brilliance.

Oh, it’s still a work of good fun, great performances and noteworthy merit, it just could have been so much more perfect.

Equal parts comedy, drama, fantasy, film noir, post-apocalyptic sci-fi and morality tale, the story is a fairly simple one: two angels, one from Heaven and one from Hell, battle for the immortal soul of a boxer. But its execution is dripping with imagination and humor. See, Heaven (which looks like Paris in the 1950s) is in dire straits. Its Manager of Operations, Marina D’Angelo (Fanny Ardant), is worried about its future. Things aren’t much better in Hell (looking like a very filthy, very sweaty industrial nightmare), though, and its Manager of Operations, Jack Davenport (Gael Garcia Bernal), is in a panic. New management wants to take over, and they would upset the balance (as it were) of the fiery domain.

One human soul belonging to a troubled boxer named Manny (Demiån Bichir) is the key for both parties, and winning it to their side is of utmost (if never fully explained) importance. So, Marina taps one of her best angels – a singer named Lola (Victoria Abril) – and sends her to Earth on a spiritual reconnaissance mission to pose as Manny’s former wife in a bid to get him back on the straight and narrow. The powers-that-be in the Netherworld, meanwhile, recruit Carmen (Penélope Cruz), a tough-as-nails but hot-as-Hades waitress currently working at a huge diner in the 22nd ring of Hell (yep, they go that high!). Her job is to thwart Lola’s efforts and ensure that the alcoholic, pugilistic Manny does not seek repentance before his impending death.

What unfolds is a very clever story about two women trying to outsmart, outwit and outplay each other. It’s move and counter-move over and over again as both Lola and Carmen (posing as a long-lost cousin) move in with Manny, get jobs at the same supermarket and plot to mold him into what their side needs him to be. Beneath their machinations is an underlying respect for each other, and even a strange attraction between the two. Manny, meanwhile, is struggling with financial problems, violent debt collectors and his relationship with his estranged mother…whose pleas to Marina to save her son’s soul were what initiated all the hubbub in the first place.

Don’t Tempt Me wins big points for its sheer originality, art direction and casting. The story is smart and funny and fresh, with things like immigration offices for Hell and courtroom hearings to decide the fate of a given soul. Its look, especially those of Heaven and Hell, is carefully crafted and seems to have been created by someone with a big grin and an even bigger wink at the audience. And the casting? Outstanding. One of the film’s highlights is a dinner party between Ardant, Bernal, Cruz and Abril, where they discuss the state of affairs in the afterlife and reminisce about good times gone by. All four seem to be relishing their roles, and Cruz is a standout for her ballsy, brazen and beautifully butch broad.

But there are also aspects to the film that hold it back a little. As the boxer at the center of the universe, Demiån Bichir (despite a hefty list of credits), is fairly one-note. Kind of bland and just…angry. To that end, his role in the fates of Heaven and Hell or why *his* is the soul that will tip the scales is never really explained, just cryptically referenced over and over again as something seemingly insignificant that’s actually significant. Huh? I mean, I understand the filmmakers intention of making the audience realize that even the smallest actions can have grand repercussions, but still. The way the angels get to Earth, move between the realms or manage to exist as humans is rather vague, as are their histories. There’s also never really a clear indicator of just what Manny is supposed to do, or why Manny believes Lola is his wife (is that who she was when she was live? do they just look a lot alike? have repeated blows to the head robbed Manny of the ability to remember his wife’s face?) or how the angels will “win” the contest, so when it’s finally revealed it’s a little anticlimactic.

But those are, I suppose, forgivable missteps or oversights overall (maybe the answers were edited out?), and the film itself is still very much enjoyable, entertaining and fun. Plus, it begins and ends with a rollicking rendition of “Kung Fu Fighting,” so really, how can it go wrong?