Summary:

Parents need to know that A La Mala is a Spanish-language romantic comedy about a woman who makes a living coming on to other women's boyfriends to test their faithfulness. There's tons of heavy flirting, with the female lead using her body to tempt men.

Review:

A LA MALA is a Mexican romantic comedy about an unemployed actress blackmailed into wooing the ex-boyfriend of a TV producer. It tries too hard to be funny and contains content that requires extreme caution.

In A LA MALA, unemployed actress Maria Medina is hired by her roommate to flirt with her boyfriend and test his loyalty to her. After word gets out, Maria finds herself being hired by scores of women to hit on their boyfriends and confirm whether they’re cheating or not. Tired of living a starving actor’s life and unable to pay her rent, Maria carves out a new career for herself.

An audition comes along for the lead role in a nationally televised show, but the producer, Patricia, is only willing to give Maria the part if she’ll help her with a revenge plot against ex-boyfriend Santiago. Patricia blackmails Maria into wooing Santiago and then agreeing to break up with him so that he’ll experience the same pain Patricia went through when Santiago broke up with her. Though Maria wants to give up her life of hitting on men for money and focus on real acting again, she reluctantly agrees in exchange for a contract with the show.

Maria starts to seduce Santiago into a relationship but unexpectedly finds herself falling in love with him. She realizes he’s falling for her as well and becomes paralyzed by indecision. When her cover is blown, Santiago breaks things off with her. Maria now faces losing her chance at a successful acting career or losing the love of her life.

A LA MALA is in Spanish with English subtitles. Perhaps this is why much of the humor is lost and might have come across better if the viewer were a native speaker of Spanish. Even so, the script tries too hard to inject comedy, ironically making it unfunny. The plot is also quite clichéd, failing to inspire any sympathy for the characters. Some moments are cringe-worthy, too unrealistic to make the viewer fall for them.

Also, the very nature of the plot is immoral. For example, the heroine, Maria, makes lying and hurting another person her chief goal, in exchange for her own material benefit. However, she doesn’t do so without remorse and tries to do the right thing before she’s caught. A LA MALA also has some sexual promiscuity, partial nudity, foul language, and recreational drinking. Extreme caution is therefore advised.

Content:

(PaPa, B, HoHo, FR, LL, SS, NN, A, MM) Strong pagan worldview overall where characters seek material gain at the cost of hurting others and sexual pleasure is sought with no moral consequences, with some moral elements where heroine feels remorse for immoral behavior and eventually did the right thing, but one character is portrayed as homosexual who kisses another man and false religion where man is referred to as a god; at least 15 obscenities plus references to male and female genitalia; no violence; strong sexual content includes implied fornication, a scene of depicted fornication, cohabitation, and two men kiss; partial upper female nudity and men and women shown only in underwear; recreational drinking of wine or tequila but no drunkenness; no smoking or drugs; and, strong miscellaneous immorality includes lying and cheating, blackmail, and revenge.

In Brief:

In the Mexican movie A LA MALA, unemployed actress Maria Medina is hired by her roommate to flirt with her boyfriend and test his loyalty. Word gets out, and scores of women start hiring Maria to hit on their boyfriends. Patricia, a TV producer, offers to give Maria the lead role in a nationally televised program, but only if Maria will help with a revenge plot against Patricia’s ex-boyfriend, Santiago. Maria agrees but unexpectedly finds herself falling in love with Santiago. Maria soon faces losing her chance at a successful career or losing the love of her life.

The script for A LA MALA tries too hard to inject comedy, making the movie unfunny. The plot is also quite clichéd, failing to inspire much sympathy for the characters. The story’s very nature is immoral as Maria makes lying and hurting another person her chief goal, in exchange for material benefit. A LA MALA also has some promiscuity, partial nudity, foul language, and recreational drinking. Though the heroine does the right thing in the end, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution for A LA MALA.

A la mala (Spanish for: By foul means) is a 2015 Mexican romantic comedy film written by Issa López and Ari Rosen and directed by Pedro Pablo Ibarra.

Cast[edit]

• Aislinn Derbez as Maria Laura 'Mala' Medina
• Mauricio Ochmann as Santiago
• Catherine Papile as Kika
• Luis Arrieta as Pablo
• Daniela Schmidt as Patricia
• Juan Diego Covarrubias as Alvaro
• José Ron as Jerónimo
• Iván Sánchez as Rafa
• Ignacio Casano as boyfriend of Dani
• Mane de la Parra as barman
• Altair Jarabo as Susana
• Eugenio Derbez as Himself
• Patricio Borghetti as Himself

Reception[edit]

Reviews for A la mala have been mixed. The News Tribune said: 'A la Mala begins with promise and finishes well enough to justify the investment in time. It's all that dull, formulaic stuff mediados pelicula (mid movie) that sucks the salt right off the tequila glass and leaves this one too stale to swallow.'^[3]

References[edit]

1. ^'AMC Theatres: A La Mala'. AMC Theatres. Retrieved 26 February 2015.
2. ^http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=alamala.htm
3. ^Moore, Roger (24 February 2015). 'Movie review: 'A La Mala' star isn't cruel enough to cut it in this Mexican romantic comedy'. The News Tribune. The McClatchy Company. Archived from the original on 27 February 2015. Retrieved 26 February 2015.

External links[edit]

• A la mala on IMDb
• A la mala at Box Office Mojo
• A la mala at Rotten Tomatoes
• A la mala at Metacritic