Jamón Jamón
Director: Bigas Luna 
Screenplay: Cuca Canals, Bigas Luna and Quim Monzó
Minutes: 95
Year: 1992
Score: 5.00
Release: Olive Films
Hands down Jamón Jamón is one of weirdest, sexiest, comedies about an underwear tycoon using a ham delivery hunk to break up a marriage proposal.
From OliveFilms.com:
From director Bigas Luna (Golden Balls) comes Jamón Jamón, starring Academy Award® winner Penélope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) making her motion picture debut opposite Academy Award® winner Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) and co-starring Jordi Mollà (In the Heart of the Sea), Stefania Sandrelli (1900) and Juan Diego (Your Next Life).
Written for the screen by Cuca Canals, Bigas Luna and Quim Monzó, Jamón Jamón traces the romantic entanglements of the beautiful and pregnant underwear factory worker Silvia (Cruz); José Luis (Mollà), the father of her child and heir to the factory fortune; Raul (Bardem), underwear model, seducer and would-be-bullfighter; and Conchita (Sandrelli), José Luis’ doting mother, family matriarch and Raul’s lover. Through a series of Machiavellian plot machinations, Conchita will seek to tear apart the relationship between her wealthy son and the second-class Silvia. Melodramatic, surreal (a duel using ham legs is a highlight) and oozing with sexual tension, Jamón Jamón is soap opera at its grandest.
Jamón Jamón is a perfectly average film that has little value beyond being drop dead sexy, the first role for Penélope Cruz, and the third for Javier Bardem. There is little charm in this melodrama which plays like a raunchy John Hughes other-side-of-the-tracks style film.
While it is nice to have a new edition of this picture out from Olive Films I can’t even say that there was a restoration as there were several instances of specks and dirt throughout. It is nice to see an early film of this Academy Award couple but it will likely collect dust on my shelf.
Director: 6 – Cinematography: 8 – Edit: 5 – Parity: 2 – Main performance: 7 – Else performance: 5 – Score: 5 – Sound: 5 – Story: 5 – Script: 4 – Effects: 5 – Design: 5 – Costumes: 6 – Keeps interest: 7 – Lasting: 0