REVIEW

LITTLE ROCK — The Mexican hit Saving Private Perez has a fairly irresistible and subversive comic premise. An ailing mother demands that her oldest son - a Tony Montana-like gangster identified as the most powerful man in Mexico - do what the U.S. Army can’t: go to Iraq and rescue his younger brother, an American soldier being held captive by insurgents.

“Why did he become a soldier?” Julian Perez (Miguel Rodarte), the drug kingpin, asks plaintively. “Why did you let him go, Ma?”

For about 40 minutes the film, directed by Beto Gomez and written by Gomez and Francisco Payo Gonzalez, generates laughs from that setup, as Julian recruits a team for the mission. Despite the nod in the title to Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, this satire feeds primarily on spaghetti Westerns, The Dirty Dozen and The Godfather. (At one point a car horn plays the opening notes of “Speak Softly Love.”)

Gathered with his warriors - a paunchy group in black cowboy hats whose members look as if they should be playing at a wedding - Julian begins the planning by asking, “Where the hell is Iraq?”

The film bogs down when this B team arrives in the desert, spooling out in a random series of dull shootouts and mildly funny visual jokes.

We’re also likely to appreciate only partly the serious underlying theme: what constitutes a hero in today’s Mexico. “Bring my Juan back,” the mother tells her No. 1 son, pausing before adding, just to be clear, “Alive !”Saving Private Perez 82

Cast:

Miguel Rodarte, Adal Ramones, Jaime Camil, Jesus Ochoa

Director:

Beto Gomez

Rating

: Not rated

Running time:

102 minutes