Chasing Papi (PG, 2003)

Papi (Mexican television star Eduardo Verastegui) has successfully kept the three women he is dating from finding out about each other until they all decide to surprise him at the same time. They are Cici (Colombian actress Sofia Vergara), who seems to be channeling Charo as a big-hair, tush-shaking spitfire; Lorena (Puerto Rican actress Roselyn Sanchez), a serious, poetry-loving lawyer; and Patricia (Texan singer Jaci Velasquez), a pampered debutante with her daddy's credit cards and a cute little dog. When they find out he has been seeing all of them, they are angry with each other, not him. As they have to work together to keep him hidden until he wakes up from a tranquilizer-induced stupor, they discover that they are getting more from themselves and each other than they ever got from him.

Chiquita Banana and the Frito Bandito were subtle compared to the caricatures of Latino culture in this movie, but because it was created by Latinos, it is supposed to be all right. The story is basically a salsa-flavored but otherwise very traditional door-slamming/ mix-up of identical bags farce.

CHASING PAPI has signifiers of Hispanic culture (everyone stops every day to watch superstar astrologer Walter Mercado on television) but it stays very generic because it wants to avoid splintering its audience by identifying its characters as being from any particular culture. The result is as shallow as a sit-com, without any of the real ethnic flavor of movies like Mi Familia or What's Cooking. And it wastes the talents of its attractive performers by forcing them to try to disguise outlandish plot hoops that make no sense with over-the-top mugging and yelling.