1
0
0
0
0
Matt Bomer and Alejandro Patiño, who play the two leads, have a chemistry that brings to mind Tom McCarthy’s superior studies of seemingly disparate characters bonding against all odds, The Station Agent and The Visitor. That unlikely companionship – the heart of Butler’s film – goes a long way to make up for other lags: underdeveloped secondary characters and a few misjudged sequences that unwittingly titter on the brink of “racist.”
Well-intentioned but at times insensitive, Papi Chulo is a complicated movie. It wants so badly to do the right thing when the situation is all wrong.
Papi Chulo eventually turns effectively…poignant.