Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 137

Chicago Tribune, Friday, July 24, 1987 Section 7 A Friday hW i i. Touching 'La Bamba' pays homage to the fates 0 Flick cf IVcck: Watch brother Gob in 'La Oamba' 171 ike most show-biz biogra-1 1 I phies, "La Bamba," writer-i 71 I director Luis Valdez's study fea! of '50s rock star Ritchie Valens, isn't much interested in show biz. Music plays a relatively unimportant role in the film (though it is there, well performed in overdub by Los Lobos). Instead, the movie uses Valens' life as a pretext for the broadest kind of family melodrama a traditional genre that is still very much with us, though these days, it seems, it ran fnnrtinn as iir Flirt nt tt Wopk is "la Ramha" a Oil biography of pop singer Ritchie Valens, i wno ai i nau mree top iu nits oeiore dying in a 1959 plane crash along with 1. onlv in i Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper.

The movie works surprisingly for reasons that have nothing to do with Valens' small list of hits. "La Bamba is really just a very good family story about a pushy mother proud of one son, derisive of another. Ritchie's half-brother Bob (played by Esai Mor-ales in a scene-stealing performance) loves Ritchie (Lou Diamond Phillips), but he doesn't like 4 A young, impoverished, socially marginal character seizes on his abilities as a performer as a way of lifting himself op to the. middle class. But in the process, he loses touch with those himself.

Unlike Ritchie, Bob experiences no reinforcement at home or in the outside world for his talent, cartoon sketching. The film works best when the brothers confront each other, or when the mother (Rosana De Soto in a fine performance) chooses sides. She doesn't mind that Ritchie changes his name from Valenzuela to Valens; Bob minds very Lou Diamond Phillips plays singer Ritchie Valens in "La "La Bamba" Directed and MM by Lutm Vaktei; photoqraphad by Adam Oreenbenj; production daaignM by Vine Cree-'Oman; adHsd by Shaldon Kahn and Don Brochu; original musk: by Cartoa Santana and Mftee Goodman; produced by Taylor Hacktord and Borden. A Columbia Ptetune nUeaar, opens My 24 at tha Water Tower and outlying theater. Bmtntng time: 1:48.

MPAA rating: PO-13. Do- closest to him who don't share his abilities or can't accept his success. Just at the moment when middle-class stability seems assured (symbolized by the construction of a nice new house in the suburbs), the hero is killed, with what seems to be a perfect arbitrariness, in a tragic plane crash. That's the story of "La Bamba," but it's also the story of 19S5's "Sweet Dreams," which featured Jessica Lange as country singer Patsy Cline. In a more general way (with or without a happy ending), it has been the story of most of the show-biz biographies ever made, all the way back to Al Jolson in "The Jazz Singer." (Valens died in the same crash that killed Buddy Holly and the Big Bop-per an incident that has already produced "The Buddy Holly The show-biz biography seems to be an almost exclusively American genre; it is, perhaps, along with the western and the hard-boiled detective film, one of the formats we have adopted for thinking about our country, for contemplating the possibilities of our culture and ironing out its contradictions.

The show-biz biography suggests the ease with which class boundaries can be crossed in America; it also sketches out the dangers that the crossing entails, in the loss of family, tradition and identity. Valdez's Valens, much like "Sweet Dreams'" Patsy Cline, is presented with his talent full grown. It isn't something he develops through practice and experience but a gemus he is granted a gift from the gods. As played by the smooth-faced, cheerful Lou Diamond Phillips, there seems to be something almost supernatural about the young man of "La Bamba." He's a chosen one, and his rise to the top will be swift and smooth. If only he could shake those nightmares about a crashing plane The hero's ascent from Richard Valenzuela, son of migrant Mexican field workers, to Ritchie Valens, national recording star isn't so much dramatized as decreed.

(Which is much as it must have seemed in real life: Valens was only 17 when he died and had been recording for only eight months.) For drama, Valdez relies instead on Valens' family on Ritchie's THE CAST much. Of course we get to meet the girl for whom Ritchie wrote "Donna," and of course we see him perform his biggest hit, "La Bamba." But this isn't a rock n' roll movie. What we take away from the picture is a bittersweet portrait of young Chicano kid trying to deal with success while his brother suffers. Actually, after seeing this movie, you don't want to hear a Ritchie Valens tune; you want to see "The Bob Valenzuela" story. "La Bamba" is playing at the Water Tower and outlying theaters.

Rated PG-13. Ricks Picks gukfa a New this week ADVENTURES BABYSITTING. (Water Tower and outlying). What begins a a standard Hds-just-wanna-have-fun adventure while their parents are out for the nkjttt turns into a genial, warmhearted romp through Chicago. The appealing Elisabeth Shua plays a suburban baby-sitter who gets herself and three youngsters Into a lot of trouble after a friend of hers cats announcing that she has run away from home, has run out of money and is downtown in the Greyhound bus station.

Thus the suburban kids are off tor a trip to tha city, and you know what that means if you've seen "Risky Business" or "Ferris BueHer's Day Off." Ac-" tuaty, "Adventures In Babysitting" is better than "Feme BueHer" and not as good as "Risky Business." What recommends ft is a genuine quality of surprise and delight registering on the faces of the kids on tha loose, even when in danger. What's bothersome is that the film has none of the sooiaT awareness of "Risky Business." The cultures clash here, but to no effect Sti, It's a tun night, and Shua ('The Karate is earnestly appealing. PG-13. THE BELIEVERS (Woods and outlying). Here's a very ambrbous fim about an essentially boring subject, a bunch of Latino and American cuttists who are out to destroy few folks, including a family headed by Martin Sheen.

The Nm alternates between tha jungle culture of South America and the occult practices that have been transported from there to New York City. Sheen plays a police psychologist whose wife is killed and whose chad ia threatened by the cuttista. The movie features plenty of gory deaths and a very weak message, which is: You are stupid If you don't believe in powers that people from another culture believe in. Tha movie was attractively Aimed by John Schlasinger, but the subject matter is stultifying and not the least bit spooky. R.

BENJi THE HUNTED (Lake Shore). First, you've got to admit this is the silliest movie title in years. After al, we're talking about a cuts little mutt named Benji, not Public Enemy No. 1. But Benji, Mow- Ing boating accident that separates him from his owner, oertein-ty is hunted throughout the film while he tries to take care of four cougar cubs orphaned when their mother Is shot by a hunter.

A word of warning to parents of smal children: You might want to watt into the movie about 10 minutes tale, after the mother cougar has been shot Then ai you wi see, for the most part, is Benji chasing a rabbit a wo chasing Benji, Benji chasing after the cubs, the hunter chasing Benji, Benji chasing after tha cubs, a bear chasing Benji wel, you get the point There are mora chases than cute "awwww" scenes tn Vie movie and on that besis It is not particularly entertaining. BenJ runs himself and us raarwd. G. BEVERLY HILLS COP (Dearborn, Water Tower and outlying). A Continued on page Bob MotbIm i Connto Vatoniuata Rom Moralaa Donna Uidvrig Bob Kaon RoMna Oa Soto Etizabath Pan -bDaniaNa von Zamack Chicano history as a broad allegorical pageant.

Clearly, he's most at home in the epic, mythic mode, and his tendency to treat his characters as single-dimensional symbols doesn't bring much to the small-scale, psychologically oriented scenes out of which much of "La Bamba" is composed. The confrontations seem too simple and preordained, and the characters seem too transparent and neatly opposed. You yearn for a little more Ritchie in Bob, and, particularly, a little more Bob in Ritchie. But melodrama is inherently a broad genre one that projects inner psychological conflicts onto towering outside forces and in the overall thrust of his film, Valdez excels in conveying a world dominated by a gigantic, impersonal power. Ritchie's prophetic plane crash nightmare, in itself, may be a cliche, but Valdez films the nightmare sequences with a horror and immediacy that transcend their trite dramatic mnction.

The two planes that collide in mid-air, the debris that drops down to crush a child in a playground: Here is a very strong image of helplessness in the face of a cruel, capricious universe. You can call this force fate (what the gods give Ritchie, they will take away) or you can call it society (in return for success, America demands an assimilation that can kill the soul). Inside this little film, something large is stirring. Reaching the Hispanic market Page G. relationships with his proud, protective mother (Rosana De Soto) and, most fatefully, with his troubled, older stepbrother (Esai Morales).

The stepbrother functions as Ritchie's dark double. Everything that comes easily to Ritchie his art, his success, his acceptance by the Anglo world is a source of torture to stepbrother Bob, who can't escape his ethnic identity, and so slowly sinks into alcoholism, irresponsibility and violence. Valdez's chief stylistic device in "La Bamba" is a methodical cross-cutting between Ritchie's rise and Bob's descent. For every inch one brother gains, the other must lose a mile. Valdez wrote and directed the musical play "Zoot Suit," which treated.