Papi, otherwise known as Tomas Fuentes (Eduardo Verastegui), is a dashing, impossibly handsome Los Angeles advertising executive who has used his frequent-flier card to establish romantic relationships with three different Latina lovelies in three different cities.
In Miami he has Cici (Sofia Vergara), a bombshell in the primordial Charo mode who works as a cocktail waitress while waiting for her big break as a professional dancer. In Chicago he reads love poetry with the buttoned-down Lorena (Roselyn Sanchez), a lawyer who wears gray suits and glasses but is a stunner when she takes them off. And in New York Papi's heart belongs to Patricia (Jaci Velasquez), a spoiled rich girl who has lost sight of her Latin roots, perhaps because her vision is clouded by her blue contact lenses.
The bumptious farce "Chasing Papi," directed by Linda Mendoza from a script credited to no fewer than four writers, asks what would happen if all three of Papi's girlfriends showed up on the doorstep of his Los Angeles home at the same time.
An old-fashioned, Lupe Velez-style catfight is, unfortunately, out of the question in these enlightened times. Instead, after some brief initial hostility, the three women form a support group and gently lead one another to life-changing revelations, like Cici's discovery that she's not just a pretty face, Lorena's realization that she can be both smart and sexy, and Patricia's sudden understanding that being Latina is nothing to be ashamed of.
All of this self-actualization is accompanied by some of the most tiresome slapstick to be seen since the premature retirement of Pauly Shore. The spectator soon comes to envy Papi, who, after washing down a handful of tranquilizers with Scotch, spends most of the movie unconscious.
Safely anesthetized, he gets to miss the ladies' not-so-hilarious invasion of a hotel where a Miss Latin America contest is being conducted, as well as the two painfully unfunny comic gangsters who are after a satchel of cash in Cici's trunk and the FBI agent (Lisa Vidal) who is after the money herself. A nonstop underscore of Latin pop, as well as several arbitrarily interpolated dream sequences and animated passages, don't do nearly enough to make up for the film's unfocused frenzy and lack of genuine comic invention.
"Chasing Papi" has been rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). It contains mildly suggestive situations and frequent lingerie modeling. Running time: 80 minutes.