Hey, where are the pictures? This is NOT the review. The review is below. I just though I'd break out into first person to share some thoughts with you. For those of you kind enough to visit this page earlier, we did have pictures. Where did they go? Usually, we try to post two pictures and a link to the official web site for every review. When we initially posted the images, we were politely asked to removed them because we did not politely ask to post them. So we removed them, and asked to post them again. Here's the fun part. We were told that we could not post picture because we had a negative review. Huh?

"...the tone and approach of your reviewer led us to believe that it was not an honest reveiw. We assume that your reviewer is a filmmaker or a publicist for another project who sees "Gabriela" as competition...It is sad to see people who feel the need to tear down others in order to succeed themselves. It is irrational and misguided and counterproductive. Regardless of the exact motives of your reviewer, a clear bias is there. It is a hit piece, and not honest journalism. In addition, on a personal level, I am disheartened...It is very important for "Gabriela" to do well at the box office if we are to send the message to Hollywood to make more Latino film projects....Your reviewer's attack on its Latino credentials is outrageous! As a Latino, it made me sick reading it."

Yeah, baby! I must admit, I do have a personal bias against this movie. I think it blew. And I explained why. What is more honest than that? I don't know about the other TWO people in the theater (that excludes the family that walked out about 30 minutes into the film). The tone of this review is no different than the tone of other reviews where I rated a movie "pretty bad." This person obviously hasn't read any other review from this site. I am not so arrogant as to believe that everyone who reads it will agree with me. Not letting us post pictures only leaves you the reader worse off. Isn't the fact that I was showing pictures generating publicity? I'm all for more Latino actors and movies. I only wish they don't suck like this one. If Gabriela does well, it only says that movies with bad scripts can do well, and we have enough junk out there already. Make good movies, and people will notice. Make a good movie, and I'll give it a good review. As a movie watcher, it makes me sick to see somebody acting so childish and pathetic. Nyah-nyah! PPPPPHHHHHHBBBBBBBTTTTT!

-Mongoose

Usually, bad movies can pass as straight-to-video or television fodder. Gabriela is a little too corny even for television. The only probable reason for a release is that the majority of the cast is Hispanic. It is nice to see a broader diversity of people on the big screen, but it would also be nice to watch them in a better film. Girlfight was a great film with a predominantly Hispanic cast, and nobody saw it. Gabriela suffers because everything is one-dimensional. Aside from the race of the main characters, there is nothing that makes this film 'Hispanic.' Except for a short trip at the end, the characters and locations are interchangeable with any number of other races, any of which would make a bad movie.

The movie is about the relationship between Gabriela (Seidy Lopez, The Stray, Luminarias) and Mike (Jaime Gomez, Clockwatchers, Solo). All the two characters do is make batty eyes at each other and engage in soft-focus TV movie love. Beyond this, they have no personality. The two meet at a psychiatric hospital, where they work together. Gabriela is engaged to be married, but does not love her fiance. Still, Mike and Gabriela fall in love. There is nothing else to the movie. Everybody at their workplace preoccupies their time talking about relationships. Their love never appears deep or believable. Sure, Lopez and Gomez are gorgeous to look at, but that is not enough for an entire movie. There are also many pathetic attempts at humor, all of which fall flat.

There are also offensive characterizations of the mentally disabled and of the people that 'work' in the hospital. Well, they don't really work, they just talk. One patient is afraid of speaking, and Gabriela is working on getting him to open up. In any other movie, this would somehow tie in with the story, by either tying in to the main story at the end, or causing some conflict that the main characters would fix. Here, writer/director Vincent Jay Miller drops it and every other subplot in the movie. There are other characters, but they are even shallower than Gabriela and Mike. Miller never fleshes out Gabriela or Mike to any degree, leaving them as hollow characterizations. Why does Mike pursue Gabriela after he learns she is engaged? How can Gabriela live in a loveless relationship for so long? The movie offers an explanation, but it feels like a cop out. Gabriela is slowly rolling out across the country, and will viewers will probably ignore it everywhere.