Knocking At Heaven’s Door
I’ve spent most of my Christmas Eve spending quality time with the kids, even putting out a special buffet lunch for us including After Eight chocolates, Pringles and a mainstay in our household – hot sausage rolls. Como Caído Del Cielo feels like a film that took all three of these food items, stuffed them into a turkey sandwich and drizzled mayonnaise over the top. Individually, the elements are enjoyable but together, very few will actually find this palatable. The 2-hour long Mexican film Como Caído Del Cielo is about the deceased icon Pedro Infante stuck between the realms of heaven and hell, given he’s too bad to be in Heaven but not quite bad enough to enter hell. Instead, God decides to give this singer a second chance and brings him back to Earth, adopting a foreign body, who happens to be a Pedro Infante impersonator by the name of Pedro, in a bid to prove he deserves to go to Heaven. Thrown head-first into this life and awakening from a coma in his new body, friends and family immediately arouse suspicions as Pedro finds himself on a journey of redemption and self-discovery, realizing the body he’s adopted is even more despicable than his own womanizing ways all those years ago. Determined to live a life on the straight and narrow, Pedro defiantly sticks by his morals (except when he doesn’t) and sets out on a quest to make Pedro’s wife fall in love with him, get into heaven, and change the negative perception of Pedro Infante his grand-daughter Jenny Intranta has of him. It’s a strange and overly convoluted set-up and despite the film attempting to add a moral compass to proceedings, the readings are rarely accurate, swinging between sexually charged exploitative humour and musical numbers that see women fall to their knees and succumb to Pedro’s every desire just from the sound of his voice. That’s before even mentioning Pedro’s constant lusting for women and overly sexualised shots of legs that find a wide-eyed Pedro struggling to control his urges. It’s all a little at odds with the final credit sequence which actually dedicates this film “to all the women in the world”. With a 120 minute run-time to fill, the film does add a curve-ball to proceedings toward the end of the second act, shedding some light over what happened in Pedro’s shadowy past to warrant him being in a coma, and even throwing in some thriller elements and a kidnapping for good measure. For a film that begins as a quirky comedy, Como Caído Del Cielo certainly goes through quite the transformation over its run-time but it’s not always for the better. Although its heart is in the right place, the film really does feel muddied and tonally confusing, as it flits between comedic, romantic and action-thriller scenes across its run-time. I have no doubt that Como Caído Del Cielo will find its audience. It’s one of those quirky, weird and bizarre films that’ll almost certainly see people gravitate toward thanks to its unique genre-hopping approach. Personally I would have preferred this to be done in a more serious biographical nature, given I know next to nothing about Pedro Infante, and this comedic approach assumes you already know the singer, which I’d imagine for International audiences they may not. The cinematography is pretty good though and the musical numbers are all in-tune and complemented with some great lighting effects throughout too so at least visually, there are some redeeming features. Como Caído Del Cielo is not a great film and it’s pretty forgettable too, clouded with a confusing message at its heart that doesn’t always come across given the questionable sexualised comedy elements. This Mexican picture feels tonally confused, attempting to please everyone and ironically pleasing very few.
