Liveblogging Talento de Barrio, the Daddy Yankee MOVIE.

We laughed ourselves into asthma attacks when we first saw the trailer for Daddy Yankee’s raggaeton epic, Talento de Barrio. It’s unbelievable they could pack in such an excess of gunfire and stick-beating and a flaming car without so much as a voiceover or dialogue to explain what in the hell is going on — and just when you think you’re going to get that explanation, you get the beat to “Rompe” instead. Fucking “Rompe.” See for yourself:

It was only a matter of time before NetFlix and the weed guy came through so we could finally watch it for ourselves. Surrounded by munchies, we chose to endure the film and liveblog it so you never, ever have to.

0:05 – The movie begins with a raging fight scene with no explanation as to who’s fighting who and why. Dudes in tight beaters and loose mesh shorts running all over the place! Oh shit, they just shot Daddy Yankee’s daughter, whoever ‘they’ is. The barrio is so tough, meng.

0:07 – Everyone is wearing screen printed white tees at the funeral.

0:13 – They show a tough looking guy walking through the jail and the music is ominous. He’s either the toughest, meanest motherfucker villain…or he’s Daddy Yankee’s best friend.

0:15 – Holy shit, I poured the Chocolate Skittles into my hand and they all group perfectly by color. Maybe I have a latent mutant ability to manipulate Skittles, like a candy Magneto. That would be the most useless X-Man ever…unless I could throw the Skittles really fast, like fast enough to puncture someone’s face.

0:17 – Yep, tough jail guy is his best friend. Feels like every male character in this movie is incapable of greeting people without throwing his arms out like Jesus wings, drawing attention to how gigantic his white tee is.

0:20 – Organic Tostitos are fucking huge, like crunchy corn protractors. Jeremy and I discuss that we really eat chips mostly as a vehicle to eat dip. We agree that we’d eat jars of salsa straight, and are considering staging a dip-off, like a dipping contest. What the fuck is going on in the barrio?

0:22 – Jeremy wonders why there hasn’t been a scene where a young Daddy Yankee is just strumming it out on the porch, whispering “rompe, rompe, rompe” as he discovers how much talento he has. They did it in Walk the Line and Notorious, why not?

0:26 – Weed makes salsa taste like cocktail sauce.

0:27 – Aw yes, club scene. The barrio ladies are dressed in total ho clothes (clothing line idea: HoCloz, Cloz fo Hoes…And Trannies, Too!) the sort of outfits that make you understand why there are so many sweatshoppy clubbing clothes stores in malls. They dance like hot pants are penetrable.

0:33 – THIS:

I swear to you these subtitles actually happen in the movie. This is not a LOLYankee we made up.

0:34 – Daddy Yankee gets interest from a producer just from having read his lyrics. They must be so awesome.

0:46 – It dawns on us how often they use the fadeout transition in this movie. It looks like a fucking PowerPoint slideshow.

0:47 –

Daddy Yankee: Eh, Jeico won’t pick up his phone.

(Sideways cut to Jeico in a different setting) – Jeico holds his ringing phone in his hand, looks at it, makes a righteous stinkface, and sets it aside. — (Sideways cut back to Daddy Yankee)

Jeico-Geico-whatever doesn't pick up his phone. Isn't it so much clearer now?

We needed this visual? We needed to SEE Jeico-Geico-whatever not answering his phone to understand that he doesn’t answer his phone? I’ve seen airplane safety instructional diagrams explain more complicated ideas better.

0:53 – Shit’s getting real, Daddy Yankee’s finally rapping, er, raggaetonning. They’ve chosen not to include English subtitle translations of his raggaeraps, which is an obviously prudent choice but damn.

1:06 – Daddy Yankee now has a random pointless inner conflict about whether to return to school now that he’s achieved some level of success. There has been no mention of him in school thus far, but whatever! No, Daddy Yankee! You mustn’t! You are all the talento this barrio has got!

1:08 – We just took another angry-dump in our pants over another terrible transition. This time it went from a gang firing rounds of bullets into a car that’s already engulfed in wild flames — straight to an Usher doppelganger singing softly. God dammit.

1:13 – Another disturbing and salient theme in this movie is that gangbanging ladies love pills. These women repeatedly ask for pills, take them and get date raped. Why?

1:15 – Daddy Yankee just blatantly ripped off the scene in 8Mile where Eminem raps to himself in the bathroom mirror. Tsk.

1:17 – His lady is sad he’s a gangbanger. He tenderly responds, “In my life on the streets, the only thing I have is my love for you.” Ain’t no love in the heart of the barrio.

1:35 — And so begins another rap scene, in which he displays all the emotional complexity of a cotton ball. He looks bored as fuck, as does Jeremy. It’s tough to sit through five minutes of lyrics without English subtitles after hearing all about how awesome they are.

1:37 – Within a minute of movie time, a character has a Daddy Yankee ringtone.

1:38 – I’m just now realizing that his character is named Edgar Dinero, not Daddy Yankee. While that’s embarrassing (it has been an hour and a half) it’s definitely worse to act all thug with a name that basically translates to Eddie Money, unless “Take Me Home Tonight” was big in the barrio.

1:42 – Daddy Yankee’s girl has the power to become white, then Mexican, in the blink of an eye.
1:43 – Daddy Yankee gets heated and slaps a guy. What a bitch. More girls ask for pills and things appear to get pretty date rapey again, with no meaningful point or contribution to this retarded storyline. I’ve had angel hair pasta thicker than this plot.

1:51 – It’s another fight scene! Me gusta la gasolina! Everybody is just shooting everything, going gat-crazy until the boss character says:

UM, ME TOO.

1:56 – We’re fed up and have begun counting down to this movie’s end. It has <10 minutes left with no apparent or foreseeable conclusion.

1:59 – “Oh shit! Geico is dead!”

2:02 – Daddy Yankee wears a scarf in the final fight scene, in what was likely a What Would Chuck Bass Do? type situation.  Yep, one of those.

2:06 – WHAT?! (read: spoiler) Daddy Yankee is spontaneously gunned down by a sniper pretending to be in a wheelchair asking for an autograph. Dude literally stands up and shoots him. It ends with a zoom out on his body, a quick flash through the events of the movie, and then it cuts to black…except apparently, he’s being revived via heart defibrillators. He was bleeding from the mouth, but now he’s fine. Start credits. There’s a moral! Message!  They actually have the sand to say, “You can take the man out of the streets, but you can’t take the streets out of the man.”  REALLY?  I am a melange of emotions right now: fussy, cotton mouth-y, and nap-want-y.

I just wanted "Rompe", you blasphemous shartmongers.

2:07 – Listening to “Rompe” off YouTube to make up for the fact that THEY NEVER DID. Not even once.