Just perfect...

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

As far as this reviewer is concerned Don't Tempt Me is a lot of confusing claptrap. Heaven and Hell in the persons of Cruz and Abrant (two lovely and fine actresses, wasted here) are fighting to gain the soul of a dying prizefighter (Demian Bichir). Just why he is such a tempting target never becomes clear. Several scenes shot in such places as a supermarket and a men's room (note the urinals), and they have a bit of humor when thought of as rooms in Hell. But at two hours particularly I felt the director was rubbing it in--or rather rubbing the viewers' faces in a mess of something. How did these good performers get involved? I should mention Gael Garcia Bernal as Davenport, just barely more than a walk-on role, but he manages to make something out of it, largely because of his own special talent, not that of the director.

Entertaining. Unique in style. It's a story about an angel from Heaven and a fallen angel from Hell who both compete over the soul of a boxer.Penelope's role in this film is more of a far cry than in her previous roles. Normally, she is cast as a beautiful object of desire, as in Vanilla Sky, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, All the Pretty Horses and Woman on Top. She has even been cast as a slightly less-than-attractive, but still desired woman, as in Blow and Gothika. For the first time, Penelope Cruz is actually shot in an almost undesirable way in this film - even letting herself get beat up a couple of times. She does pull it off, and the film succeeds as an off-kilter dark comedy with that Hollywood "Heaven vs. Hell" factor added in.It is worth it, if for nothing else, to see Penelope dance around her room "Travolta style" to the song "Kung-Fu Fighting".

Basically creates its own mythology as to the afterlife and how the angels and devils communicate and coexist. Gael, Fanny, Demian, Victoria, Penelope, and Gemma Jones were all great. As others have commented, the use of languages (at least 4) was creative. I also enjoyed the heaven and hell sets. (SPOILERS)I kept thinking, they are making the Penelope Cruz character a lesbian -- interesting --- and then it turns out she is a straight man, and Javier Bardem to boot! She did a great job in this movie.I would have liked to see at least some of the "legal" arguments before the judge as to Manny's fate, but that is my own negative comment, and not much of one.

Many observers have noted that at first glance on paper one might think this is a Pedro Almodovar film, what with Victoria Abril cast in it, among other things. Well, I haven't seen too much of Almodovar's work, and I knew nothing about director Augustin Diaz Yanes when I entered the theatre to see this film. But I wonder, did Almodovar show such promise so early in his career? From the first few minutes I was captivated by the movie and I stayed enthralled throughout. By the time Penelope Cruz was dancing around to "Kung Fu Fighting" I knew this was a rare film indeed (and no, it's no rip-off of 'Pulp Fiction,' either!)For all it's audaciousness, the premise has been used many times before. Like 'Paradise Lost,' the battlefield is Heaven, Hell and Earth. But the specifics are a little more prosaic: angels from Heaven and Hell fight for their survival over the soul of a rather ordinary mortal, a not-to-bright or personable boxer. Heaven and Hell are presented as distinctly mortal-like places--Heaven is nice, but hardly the celestial paradise we envision, and Hell is unpleasant, but nothing nearly as bad as Dante imagined. The two places are run like competing businesses, it would seem, and the CEO God (and presumably Satan in his own realm) is AWOL--apparently he's too tired or disinterested to bother with the details of running the place, leaving that task up to lesser creatures. Right now Hell seems to have the upper hand. Heaven is somehow almost bankrupt and may well go under if they can't snag this one earthbound soul, the aforementioned boxer, who fate has cast in some great future role that we never fully understand. But there's trouble brewing in Hell, too, and even though they've got the advantage over Heaven at the moment, there are internecine power struggles to worry about there. So each each side dispatches an agent to try to win over Manny, this boxer who unwittingly holds the fate of this world and those beyond in his hands.That's where Abril and Cruz come in, and they are just a joy to watch for the almost two hours this flick runs. Abril is Lola the heavenly angel who ingratiates herself in Manny's life as his wife, and Cruz is Carmen, who poses as his long-lost cousin (Manny isn't the brightest crayon in the box so he can be convinced that all of a sudden he has a five-year marriage he doesn't remember.) Lola and Carmen thrust and parry throughout the film, but on a surprisingly cordial level--Carmen isn't as bad as one would expect a denizen of Hell to be and neither woman seems possessed of any otherworldly powers; they go about their business in a very earthly way. You combine a great script, two outstanding performances and excellent direction and not surprisingly you get a first-rate film, as good as any I've seen this year. This is not quite Orson Welles and 'Citizen Kane' here, but it put me in mind of it, it's that good.