'Bandidas' wanted for stealing time

If movie reviews could come in the form of wanted posters, mine would read something along these lines: WANTED: Penélope Cruz and Salma Hayek for the theft of 93 minutes from numerous critics and film watchers and for taking their careers to a new low. There would be no reward as we'd be saving people from a "Bandidas" sequel. \n"Bandidas" is nothing more than one of those foul joke films. You know the kind where two actors say to one another, "Hey wouldn't it be great if we did this kind of movie together?" The kind of movie being a Western that borders on parody with a story told countless times in the past and lacking originality. \nPenélope Cruz and Salma Hayek play women from different class backgrounds in Mexico who unite together to rob banks and save their country from an evil land baron played by the usually creepy Dwight Yoakam. \nSomehow Luc Besson ("Léon," "The Fifth Element") got dragged into penning this project and, as usual, his work is either hit or miss. Plot hole after plot hole open up as the story moves along at a pace akin to a horse rode way too hard. Cruz and Hayek are both incredibly talented and beautiful women (see "Volver" for some of Cruz's finest work to date), but with "Bandidas," eye candy takes precedence over even trying to act. Plus when one discovers the film is directed by two first-timers, one begins to wonder if it might've been a little better had Luc Besson or possibly Robert Rodriguez bothered to direct it. \nThe DVD isn't anything to rave about either. The commentary track provided by Cruz and Hayek is mostly quiet -- even they say they've never done a commentary track before and aren't too sure how it works. Occasionally some words are muttered and they laugh, but nothing educational or entertaining comes out of it. A short five-minute featurette has quick interview blurbs with both women talking about how much fun the movie was to make and the disc is rounded out by the theatrical trailer ("Bandidas" never actually had a theatrical release in the United States, only a few select locations in Mexico where it performed poorly). \nMy advice to Cruz and Hayek is to skip out on a "Bandidas 2" and take a more dramatic route the next time with a qualified director. If it turns out to be melodramatic tripe like a telenovela, expect people to start taking those wanted posters a bit seriously.