Available at Amazon.com
Director
Franc. Reyes
Cast
Manny Perez ………. Wilson DeLeon Sr.
D.C. Benny ………. Ceasar
Rick Gonzalez ………. Wilson DeLeon, Jr.
Dania Ramirez ………. Ana
Wanda De Jesus……….Millie
Tego Calderon……….Choco
Antonio Ortiz……….Randy
The Movie
Crime films over the last decade have become to a current generation what westerns and action films were to the past several decades. And in the past several years there have been several epic crime films that have set the standard for the genre. Unfortunately Illegal Tender isn’t one of those.
A Scarface of sorts for the Reggaeton set, Illegal Tender follows the travails of Wilson DeLeon Jr. (Rick Gonzalez). His father and namesake (Manny Perez) was killed many years ago for a trespass against his boss and his mother Milie (Wanda De Jesus) has he and his little brother Randy (Antonio Ortiz) on the run from the criminals who want to finish the job they failed 20 years ago. It turns into a journey into manhood for Wilson Jr. as he has to step up and settle the score started before the day he was born.
And if it sounds like a clichéd ’70s crime drama that would play in a double feature with one of the Shaft films, that’s because Franc. Reyes has crafted the film to be a throwback to that era. Everything about the film looks and feels like it would’ve been starring Freddie Prinze Sr. as a youngster as opposed to Rick Gonzalez. It’s got the vibe of an older crime film; down to its using exotic locales as window dressing, the film would’ve fit in much better thirty years ago as opposed to a time when the style of crime film has changed radically.
It’s not terribly good to begin with; this isn’t a bad film, obviously, but it’s not a good one either. It’s thoroughly mediocre in everything it does with the exception of Wanda De Jesus. While she gives a stellar performance as Millie, everything else in the film is decidedly mediocre. There’s no heart to it, as the script and dialogue are weak.
While it has terrific music and colorful scenery to make it a lively experience, Illegal Tender is boring when it has to actually deliver a plot.
A/V QUALITY CONTROL
Presented in a widescreen format with Dolby Digital audio, Illegal Tender looks and sounds terrific. This is a film with lots of terrific music and colorful visuals, from New York to Puerto Rico, and the film looks and sounds terrific. It takes advantage of the format and system fully, making it a tremendous experience to watch.
The Extras
Deleted Scenes are included and were cut from the film for the usual reasons. It’s only nine minutes of material, though, so it’s not a if there was a large amount of film to cut out.
Making of Illegal Tender is a making of piece about the film. It’s a fairly long piece of about 20 minutes considering it doesn’t have much to offer in terms of information; John Singleton gets more camera time than Reyes does and most of what he (and everyone else) offers is usual EPK stuff.
The music video for “Dame Dame” by Que No, as well as a Making of featurette, are included as well.
