'EL CANTANTE'S' MUSIC IS HOT, BUT ITS STAR IS NOT.

Byline: BOB STRAUSS

>FILM CRITIC

If movie biographies are any indication, only a certain type of person can be a pop genius.

They must have at least one unloving parent and a dead sibling or child. If they're guys, there's a good woman who stuck with them through hard times and betrayals. And of course, drug addiction. There is no good music without drug addiction.

Hector Lavoe, the Puerto Rican salsa pioneer, arguably had it tougher than most: dead mother, brother and child; plus, a suicide attempt that left him crippled during his final, AIDS-ravaged years.

If the new movie about him, "El Cantante," is to be believed, Lavoe also suffered in a way that Ray Charles, Johnny Cash and Edith Piaf never did. He had no personality.

At least that's how Marc Anthony's portrayal of Lavoe comes across.

From what I've read, Lavoe had a wicked sense of humor, devastating self-doubt about his haunting vocal talent and some understanding that his work was crucial to the Latino pride movement of the 1960s and '70s.

Blink-and-you'll-miss-them references to all of that, and to what made salsa such a unique form of Latin music, flash through "El Cantante."

But scene after scene is overwhelmingly concerned with Lavoe's drug habit and the effect it had on his career (he was infamously late for shows, if he got to them at all) and his marriage to the feisty, devoted and pretty screwed-up-

herself Puchi.

Emphasizing Nuyorican earthiness, Jennifer Lopez often tries too hard to compensate for the energy her real-life husband doesn't put out. At least she has some memorable moments, such as in the film's opening scene in which Puchi fishes Hector out of some Lower Manhattan shooting gallery and joyfully prepares him for a concert.

Anthony tends to just look vaguely glum, and when he does express Lavoe's inner demons, the dialogue he's provided sounds flat and generic. Fortunately, the dreary succession of self-destructive cliches is punctuated by fantastic musical numbers.

I'm not qualified to get into the argument over whether Anthony's own, more commercially accessible brand of salsa revived the genre or betrayed the purer, stronger stuff Lavoe, Willie Colon and Ruben Blades made back in the day. But Anthony sings the old songs gorgeously here, and he at least creates a worthy tribute through the musical aspect of the movie.

But as with his last biopic, "Pinero," director Leon Ichaso has a way of both dwelling on the most sensationalistic aspects of a genius' life while obscuring the importance and meaning of their work. Employing an impressionistic, time-jumping editing style, he makes films that look arty but don't focus enough on what made the artist in question special.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

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EL CANTANTE - Two stars

>R: drug use, language, sex, mild violence.

>Starring: Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez.

>Director: Leon Ichaso.

>Running time: 1 hr. 56 min.

>Playing: In wide release.

>In a nutshell: Salsa superstar Hector Lavoe's life, presented in the took-too-many-drugs form that too many music biopics emphasize.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez star as Hector and Puchi Lavoe, with Bernard Hernandez as their young son, Tito, in "El Cantante," the story of the drug-addicted salsa legend.