Not only is actor/comedian Eugenio Derbez beloved in his home country of Mexico, he has also become a box office name in the U.S. and by extension, the world, recently appearing in the Oscar-winning film CODA.  Next, the world gets to experience his comedic talent in the English-language remake of the French hit The Valet, when it premieres as a  Hulu Original (May 20) in the U.S. and Internationally on Disney+ as a Star Original. Richard Wong is set to direct.

The Valet centers around a movie star Olivia (Samara Weaving) who enlists a parking valet (Derbez) at a Beverly Hills restaurant to pose as her lover to cover-up her relationship with a married billionaire (Max Greenfield). As a valet, hard-working Antonio usually flies under the radar but his ruse with Olivia thrusts him into the spotlight and brings him to see himself more clearly than ever before. “Its message of unity, seeing each other and human connection, is something the world could use right now and no one does that better than Hulu and Disney+,“ said Wong.  

Derbez’s “crossover success” from television and film star in Mexico to the U.S. was sealed when he started appearing in films that were slanted with U.S. Latinos in mind.  One of the first films he made for the U.S. market was Bajo La Misma Luna/Under The Same Moon (2007) which was a Mexico/U.S. co-production written by Lijiah Villalobos and directed by Patricia Riggen.  Derbez had a small but pivotal role in this film, but it was enough for him to realize that he had millions of fans in the U.S. 

Mexican-Americans are 66% of all U.S. Latinos and they are familiar, or their parents are familiar with the show Derbez co-created, co-directed, and starred in, the family sitcom La familia P. Luche, as they watched it on U.S. Spanish language networks.  He realized that there was a substantial audience that would support his content in the U.S.

This notion was put to the test when he produced his first film marketed in the U.S., Instructions Not Included (2013) which he directed, co-wrote, and starred in.  It became the most successful Spanish-language film in the U.S. and worldwide broke numerous box-office records, earning more than $100 million worldwide. $44.4 million of that was earned in the U.S., with the help of the U.S. Latino market with MPAA has noted purchase 26% of all movie tickets.

Derbez produced and starred in a string of films beginning with Instructions Not Included which was followed by How To Be A Latin Lover (2017), and Overboard (2018).  In between producing his films he took on co-starring roles in high-profile studio films like Miracles From Heaven (2016) for Columbia Pictures, Dora and the Lost City of Gold for Paramount, and recently CODA for Apple TV+.  He has solidified his role in the U.S. as an actor that can “carry” a movie, meaning it will make a return on investment at the box office. 

Some would say that Derbez has found a winning formula. The one thing his films have in common is the casting, mixing known general market actors in the U.S. and Mexican actors.  This winning combination has worked for his previous films and it is the same formula in play with The Valet.  Betsy Brandt (Life in Pieces), Marisol Nichols (Riverdale, Criminal Minds), Noemi Gonzalez (Selena: The Series), Carmen Salinas (legendary Mexican actress who recently died), Ravi Patel (Wonder Woman), Tiana Okoye, Diany Rodriguez (The Blacklist), Mexican actor Armando Hernández, Carlos Santos (Gentefied), Amaury Nolasco (Hightown, Prison Break), John Pirucello (Godzilla vs. Kong) and Alex Fernandez (Mayans MC) round out the rest of the cast with Reggaeton superstar Lunay set to make his film acting debut. 

“The Valet is a multi-generational, multicultural comedy in which people from two different worlds discover the humanity in each other, Derbez and his 3Pas production company partner Benjamin Odell said in a joint statement. “ At 3pas studios we tell stories that try to unite us all and we love partnering with Hulu+ and Disney+ to bring this to the largest global audience possible.”

For the most part, in the domestic film world, Derbez has established himself as an actor that can carry, as well as produce a film that delivers box office numbers.  He is now looking to conquer the international market.

The Valet is written by Rob Greenberg & Bob Fisher, the team that penned Derbez’s hit film Overboard, which took in $95 million worldwide. Derbez and Odell’s 3Pas Studios banner is currently producing the television series Acapulco, which recently got picked up for a 2nd season by Apple TV.  

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By Roberto Leal

In 1957, Patti Page recorded her hit song, Old Cape Cod. The wistful tune was a melodic love letter about an idyllic seaside community dotted with quaint villages with the aroma of lobster stew wafting through the air over a romantic moonlit bay. According to Page, “You’re sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod.” Ah yes, a quiet, peaceful haven with ocean views where you could live and raise a family.

That was Cape Cod circa 1950. Fast forward to the present and we find Cape Cod and nearby Provincetown hit by hard times. Crime, corruption, alcoholism and rampant drug addiction have turned the once popular seaside resort area into a dangerous snake pit of inequity. The Cape Cod that is the setting for STARZ’s Hightown isn’t a safe place to raise your cobra, much less your child.

HIGHTOWN: POST MODERN NEO-NOIR AT ITS BEST

The classic film noir genre movies were at their glorious black and white greatest during Hollywood’s Golden Age in the 1940s and 1950s. These gritty Cold War-era urban crime thrillers were characterized by tough, cynical private detectives played by actors like Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum and Alan Ladd, who often worked on both sides of the law. The femme fatale was another vital character in any film noir movie. The femme fatale was always beautiful, seductive and her loyalties were never clear and she often double-crossed the hero. In films like This Gun for Hire (Veronica Lake), Out of the Past (Jane Greer) and Double Indemnity (Barbara Stanwyck), these femme fatales personified dangerous dames in the classic film noir era.

The neo-noir movies of the ’70s and 80’s retained the basic template of film noir but were in Technicolor and the acting style was more natural, not quite so stylized. They were often homages to great film noir of the past, Chinatown and Body Heat, come to mind. But they could also be set in a dystopian future landscape like Blade Runner and because the old Hollywood code no longer exists, the sexuality and profanity in neo-noir films are more explicit and not implied like it was in the good old days.

Hightown series creator Rebecca Perry Cutter (Gotham) has constructed a world in what we can safely call post-modern neo-noir. It’s a world that still observes the basic tenets of film noir: crime, world-weary cynicism, corruption and alienation. But Cutter has turned everything else on its head with compelling dramatic results.

Typically, film noirs are set in big urban cities like Los Angeles or New York City. Hightown takes place in what used to be the picturesque seaside resort of Cape Cod but has now deteriorated into an area of crime, alcohol and drug addiction. The old reliable hyper-masculine, hard-boiled hero played by the likes of Sam Spade, Mike Hammer, Jake Gettes has been replaced by Jackie Quiñones, a diminutive Latina who works for the National Marine Fishery Services. Hightown is also populated with a diverse cast of characters including Latinos, African Americans and Anglos. Cutter has a requisite femme fatale in Hightown but also has strong, independent women in other roles.

The opening credits are a fast and furious series of jump-cut images of the ocean, sailboats and sandy beaches, vacationers and people dancing to the sounds of The Textones performing their punk rock version of The Go Go’s hit song Vacation. But look closely, neatly spliced in between those festive scenes are images of people smoking dope, snorting blow and cooking heroin in a spoon. These subliminal-like images foreshadow what this show is really about and why it is called Hightown.

THE LATINA FISH COP ANTI-HERO

Monica Raymund (Chicago Fire), plays Jackie Quiñones, is a hard-working Latina for the National Marine Fisheries Services by day and is an openly gay, promiscuous, coke-snorting, alcoholic by night with no outwardly discernible redeemable qualities. Raymund’s portrayal of this Latina character as a terribly flawed anti-hero is the driving force behind the complicated narrative of this dark, intense and riveting crime drama.

Mike Pniewski (Madam Secretary) plays Ed, Jackie’s fish cop partner and elderly father-figure who worries about her reckless self-destructive lifestyle and is constantly inviting her over for dinner. Ed keeps hoping something will happen that will change the trajectory of her life.

One night Quiñones discovers the murdered body of a young woman. It’s obviously drug-related and it sparks a change in Quiñones. She becomes determined to find out who did it and why. James Badge Dale (The Departed) is Detective Ray Abruzzo. He’s a narc working on the murder and its connection to a larger drug case. He and Quiñones form an uneasy, reluctant alliance to solve the crime. The problem is Abruzzo is an amoral cop with a sex addiction. Abruzzo’s sexual misconduct with confidential informants and a female police officer threatens to destroy not only his career but the entire drug case investigation.

Riley Voelkel (Roswell, New Mexico) as Rene, is the girlfriend of a drug kingpin, Frankie Cuevas, menacingly played by Amaury Nolasco (Transformers). While Frankie is doing time in prison, Abruzzo recruits Rene as a confidential informant. A sexual relationship develops and in true femme fatale fashion, Rene stabs Abruzzo in the back, turns him into the cops and drops a dime on him. The whole drug case against Frankie Cuevas goes up in smoke.

Season one ends with Cuevas getting out of prison with Rene dutifully waiting for him outside the gate. Quiñones tries to dry up at AA meetings with the occasional moral lapse. But she is outraged and more determined to solve the murder of the young girl.

IS THERE REDEMPTION IN JUSTICE?

As with all great film noir, the plot is secondary to the characters in the story. With rare exceptions, the characters in any iteration of film noir are Shakespearean tragic human beings. Their fatal flaws never fail to betray them at the worst possible times. The fascinating paradoxical conflict in film noir crime dramas is the good guys often do bad things to catch bad guys.

As the first Latina anti-hero, Quiñones struggles with her demons of alcoholism, drug use and a hedonistic lifestyle as she earnestly tries to seek justice for the murdered girl she encountered on the beach one night and find redemption in the process.

Season two of ‘Hightown’ premieres on STARZ on Oct. 17 and  and is available on streaming services like Hulu and Amazon with a Starz add-on. Also, Season one is currently available free to Prime Video customers.

HIGHTOWN

Stars: Monica Raymund, Riley Voelkel, James Badge Dale, Amaury Nolasco, Mike Pniewski, Atkins Estimond and Tanya Glanz 

Featured Photo: Hightown (Credit: Starz)

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