Delantero *** (2021, Victor Cruz, Yuliet Cruz, Jorge Martínez) – Classic Movie Review 13,600

Victor Cruz stars as a young soccer player who moves to Havana to live with his aunt, where rumours that he is gay start up again, in the intense and effective 2021 Cuban drama film Delantero.

Writer/ director Irán Hernández Castillo’s simple, direct, thoughtful, emotionally intense and effective 2021 Cuban drama film Delantero comes with highly impressive central performance by Victor Cruz as Fredy, a handsome teenage soccer player who lives in the countryside in a small village in Cuba where he feels it is necessary to deny his homosexual inclinations.

When rumours start circulating in the village that he is gay, and after getting into a fight, he decides to go to live with his aunt (Yuliet Cruz) in Havana, and is soon playing soccer again with new friends. There the rumours start up again, but the group of people he meets help him to realise that it is best to confront his sexuality and accept himself.

It is perhaps disappointingly short at just 63 minutes, and could easily accommodate another half hour. But then again it does the job, and ideally and satisfyingly, and it doesn’t need to be any longer.

The crucial revelation is this. It turns out that the heterosexual dad he adores has given him the adoration of men.

Delantero = forward in Spanish.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,600

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com