Bandidas

Considering that Bandidas features sultry señoritas Salma Hayek and Penélope Cruz in corsets and cowboy hats as Mexican bank-robbing partners, the onscreen results are substantially more chaste than I’ve been imagining for the past nine years. Barely released stateside, Bandidas is good, clean PG-13 fun, making it one of the biggest disappointments in recent memory. The plot, if you’re interested in such nonsense, concerns farm girl Cruz and educated girl Hayek teaming up to settle a score with the ruthless bank rep who stole their land. The atrociously edited first third of the film is pure torture—it feels like a washcloth stitched out of a beach towel—but when the two leads join sides, the cleavage becomes so overwhelming that you barely notice the hackneyed script and shabby slapstick.