How to Be a Latin Lover movie review (2017)

Nor do we require a farce that might have been more appropriate as an outright R-rated romp but instead awkwardly chooses to be a PG-13 bring-the-kids outing. Now-penniless, the mooch moves in with estranged sister Sara (Salma Hayek) and decides to tutor his shy and fatherless 10-year-old nephew, Hugo (Raphael Alejandro), in the art of being a junior Casanova. Of course, Maximo has an ulterior motive: The kid’s grade-school crush has a rich widowed grandmother who just happens to look just like Raquel Welch because she is Raquel Welch—and he is determined to make her his next designated sugar mommy.

That means we are subjected to questionable cross-generational humor of varying degrees of silliness and stupidity. On one side are blatantly childish shenanigans including poop and fart jokes as well as a running joke where Derbez pours both Cap’n Crunch cereal and milk directly into his mouth so he can avoid washing dishes. On the other side is much more suggestive humor as Maximo employs such pseudo-naughty euphemisms as “poking” and gives Hugo—aka his “Minimo”—a demonstration on how to do a “sexy walk” that will drive the ladies crazy. When his uncle explains that women who witness his strut will think, “He must be great in bed,” Hugo smiles as he brags, “I AM great in bed. I don’t pee or anything anymore.”

Such wince-able tries at verbal ripostes might be why Derbez seems so fond of sight gags, such as Maximo regularly being on the receiving end of bodily abuse or the repeated spectacle of him waking up on his flattened leaky air mattress on his nephew’s bedroom floor. There is also a spa visit whose variation on manly defoliation is nowhere close to the classic scene in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.” 

To presumably better his chances of crossing over to English-speaking audiences, Derbez is joined by several Hollywood-bred second bananas including Rob Corddry as Welch’s wary chauffeur, Rob Riggle and Rob Huebel as two shady goons chasing after Maximo when he reneges on a business deal and Kristen Bell as an overly cheery manager of a frozen yogurt shop whose clawed countenance bears the scars of being a crazy cat lady.