For a movie that should be about high stakes, all-or-nothing risks, there was almost no heat until the last quarter of the movie.

What’s curious is that “Clika” spends so much time on things it doesn’t know how to do well, and so little on the most enjoyable element here: any scene where JayDee is singing.

What [Clika] glaringly sheds in its performances and direction is some of the sturdiness of a more traditional Hollywood production. But that also matters less in a movie like this, one clearly made, with love and belief, by and for the people it centers.

Música Mexicana fans are likely to appreciate the fact that this drama is rooted in the genre, but it's pretty stiff, formulaic stuff, and it doesn't effectively capture the vibrancy of the music.