It is no small accomplishment that I am arguably the only person on earth who has seen both this film and Black Spring Break, which was released straight to video about five years back. Without waiting for Asian Spring Break or Eastern European Spring Break, I can say that all these films prove is that minorities are as dull and insipid as whites. I’m not even sure why each and every racial and ethnic group needs a spring break movie, if only because the genre itself establishes that participants will do little but get drunk, have sex, and cruise bars and nightclubs. As I said with the equally repellent Low Rider Weekend, it is a dubious achievement of affirmative action when we give equal opportunity to all and the best we can come up with are low-budget films without stories or even remotely professional production values. And the point needs to be established up front — there is a new voice in Latino cinema, and his name is Lorenzo De La Cruz, who can only be described as the Mexican Ed Wood. Latin Spring Break is, from a technical point of view, the worst film in the history of the earth and its “plot” easily the least engaging. At bottom it is nothing more than random scenes thrown together with the sole aim of showing Mexican women rubbing their tits, undressing, and shaking their asses. Based on this film alone one could (and should) conclude that Mexico is the most sexist nation on the planet and Mexican men the most misogynistic scoundrels who have ever lived. But that’s based solely on the images I saw, because as I said, the production values were so bad that I didn’t hear at least 90% of the dialogue being uttered. While I doubt any of the mumbling and garbled syntax was worthy of civilized ears, it would have been nice had the director thought to throw a boom mike into the mix. Instead, all I heard was the earth-shaking rumble of Mexican rap music.
As I set the scene, remember that no attempt is made at linear storytelling, and randomness reigns throughout. Several friends are having a poker game and remembering what they did over the weekend. As they relate their stories, the film uses flashbacks to help tell the story. A whole lotta flashbacks. In fact, at least half the film’s running time is devoted to these flashbacks, which are little more than bargain basement music video sequences. One guy informs us that he went to a car show, so the film cuts to several minutes of car-hopping and drunk Mexicans wandering around a park. Another man tells us about a fashion show, so the film cuts to big-assed women strutting down a stage, flashing their tits and rumbling their cheeks. I’m not sure what fashions were being promoted, but I am guessing that there is a healthy market for crotchless panties and feather boas in East LA. Then another man talks about his club visits, so we get even more flashbacks featuring even bigger asses and sagging brown breasts, the kind that come from nursing a litter of seven. Music thumps, women dance around, and as we return to the men they are laughing and telling jokes without me being able to understand a word. But as a song roars on the soundtrack, I hear the lyric, “Tell me where you want it, in your face or on your stomach.” Excuse me? Listen — I have no problem with gratuitous anything, but if the guardians of culture and assorted feminists are going to slam popular entertainment for its demeaning attitudes about women, perhaps it should drop the political correctness and go after the Latinos once in awhile. Few movies are as gleeful as Latin Spring Break in terms of reducing women to their sexual components. For Mexican men, women are on earth to be fucked, tricked, lied to, exploited, demeaned, and if necessary, thrown in cages to dance for our pleasure.
The main flashbacks consist of a trip to Rosarito, Mexico, where two of the men discuss the fun they had with two whores they picked up at an LA nightclub. The most telling moment occurred when the foursome entered Mexico. The border scene was absolute chaos, what with the Chicklets salesmen, drunken jugglers, barefoot and retarded children, and tacky merchandise up for sale. It was just shy of a full-scale riot. The group arrives at an aunt’s house, where they proceed to drink beer, play spin the bottle, and exchange the sort of dialogue you would expect in an amateur porno. In fact, because the movie is filmed on video with people who are clearly not actors, it all has a creepy, home-made feel, almost as if we are watching someone’s desperately dull home movies. They leave the house to go bungee jumping, which is the stupidest thing imaginable in a country without laws or regulations. The bungee scenes take at least ten minutes, and the only surprise was that none of the women decided to do it topless. Flashbacks within flashbacks occur next, as the truth or dare contest features discussions about past loves and one character’s recollection of the strangest place where he had ever masturbated. The flashback was a three minute scene of a big-titted woman stripping to an obnoxious hip-hop ditty while she played with herself quite joylessly. And then (ugh) the game forces the two women to strip as a dare, and the film grinds to a halt as they bump and grind, remove clothing, and watch as the two guys exchange high-fives and giggle like Beavis and Butthead. It’s all decidedly unerotic and boring beyond belief. I never thought I’d get tired of seeing breasts, but I wanted nothing more than these tramps to put away their tattooed boobs and go anywhere but in front of the camera.
So, the rest of the film was about the two guys looking for even more women, going to bars, drinking even more liquor, and watching half-naked girls shake their asses. The camera pans endless scenes of drinking and dancing, with no other purpose than to reinforce the stereotype that Mexicans have nothing more to do with their time and that their culture consists of little else but fucking moronic women, getting blasted, and waking up in their own vomit. Christ, and then there is another flashback scene that is really a man’s dream, whereby we watch a nasty ho with a c-section scar dance around a pool. Some men dream of conquering the world or solving great issues of the day, others dream of sore-ridden prostitutes with visible signs of their numerous pregnancies. And it all ends with the lone sex scene, where a chick screams, “You’re an animal!” as the other couple giggles with delight. Then there’s a brief walk on the beach, a return to the poker game, and an announcement that all of them have to throw up. Cut and print. And to think I voted against a Cesar Chavez state holiday.