marty calabrese

In the Heights should have been subtitled: Bigger! Louder!! Faster!!! The story is episodic... a lot of different stories that overlap. And the characters sing and dance their way through their problems of life in the barrio. But the problem is... the stories are cliche ridden, the characters are shallow, the music ordinary, the dance repetitive, the direction messy with too many quick cuts and confused story telling. In Latin films there's always flan and a grandmother. So no surprise about the flan but the grandmother... what a surprise... she steals the movie. She's not only the only one of the characters who has real feelings but she also has a terrific song towards the end and she delivers! Wow!