Biopics of musicians are slowly becoming the new sports movies. Just as you never see a flick about a team that's had a great season with no trouble or inner turmoil at all, you have just as much chance of seeing the profile of a singer who never abused drugs, was loved by all, and generally had an awesome life. Alas, the torrential, "Behind the Music" kind of stories are more often than not the ones that get the cinematic treatment, the latest of which is El Cantante.

This feature brings to the screen the story of Hector Lavoe (Marc Anthony), a young Puerto Rican man who came to New York City in the early '60s and seemingly in no time found success performing with his crackerjack voice. Eventually, his growing fame took him out of the nightclubs and into the hands of a record label, which used him and other Hispanic musicians to launch a new wave of music upon the world: salsa. Hector's star rose even higher, and with his beautiful wife Puchi (Jennifer Lopez) at his side, it seemed he was living the perfect life. But if the movies have taught us anything, it's that nothing is as peachy-keen as it looks. With the increase in fame and mainstream exposure came a growing addiction to drugs, slowly taking a toll on his personal and professional lives to the point of eventually being diagnosed with HIV in the 1980s.

The reason that Walk the Line and Ray, two recent examples of a musical biopic, succeeded despite their painfully predictable structures was because their respective filmmakers had great passion for their subjects, a dedication to convey warts-and-all celebrations of their lives and music that shone through brilliantly on the big screen. El Cantante, however, lacks such passion and fails to allow the audience to become acquainted with Hector Lavoe by getting to know him on our own terms. Instead, director/co-writer Leon Ichaso's approach involves  telling us what a great guy Lavoe was without providing any compelling evidence supporting his argument. El Cantante leaves the viewer with a  pathetic impression of Lavoe, who comes across as a guy who was a talented singer but nevertheless screwed up his life after getting into drugs. I'm fairly  sure that's not what Ichaso had in mind, but the sort of well-roundedness with which James Mangold told the story of Johnny Cash and Taylor Hackford spun the life of Ray Charles is not evident here at all.

Because Lavoe was obviously not as iconic as Cash or Charles, a little extra work was needed to relate his importance to those who haven't even heard of him. But El Cantante is inherent with a lazy sense of self-importance, talking a lot of talk but rarely if ever coming through with the walk. This is especially true in its attitudes involving salsa music in general, which the filmmakers equate in an ending title card with a force of nature that had escaped containment and yet show an hour beforehand as the brainchild of some record executive.

As far as the performances go, the show belongs pretty much to Anthony and Lopez alone. Anthony certainly has the vocal chops to entertain viewers during the many concert scenes, although his dramatic prowess is a little sketchy (it doesn't help that despite spanning nearly three decades, Lavoe doesn't seem to age in the slightest). Lopez is possibly at her most grating here, delivering a nails-on-a-chalkboard performance as Puchi -- and not just during Lavoe's career but also in a wraparound story in which she talks to a modern-day film crew about Lavoe's life (why we had to see a horrible aging job on Lopez instead of actual footage of the real Puchi is beyond me).

I have no doubt that Hector Lavoe's life would make a compelling story, one about how a troubled musician managed to help bring a specialized genre of music to national attention. I would love to see that film, for the one El Cantante turns out to be is more of a shameless vanity project than the labor of love Lavoe seems to deserve.

MY RATING: * 1/2 (out of ****)

(Released by Picturehouse Entertainment and rated "R" for drug use, pervasive language and some sexuality.)