La Pena Máxima 2 follows the 2001 iconic Colombian comedy of futbol obsession. The first film was written by Dago Garcia, who produced this not quite a sequel and devised it with different characters. I have not seen the original, but this film shows the high production quality of Colombian films and the charm of Colombia’s fandom.
The Story
In the story, Abelardo (Santiago Alarcón) and his brother Raul (Biassini Segura) are great fans of the Colombian National Team. Abelardo’s daughter Laura (Laura Taylor) announces that she is engaged to Walter, aka El Fantástico (Sergio Herrera), the star of the NT, and they are going to get married right away. Her dream is to go on a very expensive honeymoon.
But Abelardo is a government employee with no savings. His ex-wife Diana (Viña Machado) is married to a successful Argentinian businessman, who plans to pay for everything. Abelardo is not just a proud man, he still thinks he can get back together with Diana.
Abelardo goes to the local loan shark, Don Malito (Bernardo Garcia) and borrows the money to pay for the honeymoon. As collateral, he guarantees that his future son-in-law, El Fantastico, will score a hat trick against Bolivia, and the win will qualify Colombia for WC 2026 in the USA. Unfortunately, the game ends up being on the young couple’s wedding day.
The rest of the film is Abelardo and Raul going through extreme antics to ensure that El Fantastico is unaware of the bet, plays in the game, and scores a hat trick.
In Conclusion
Frankly, I was apprehensive watching this film, as I assumed the whole family would end up in jail for game-fixing. And the antics were over the top and required some suspension of reality. But you know, these days it is a lot of work to be a clever storyteller; you have to go very big to get the big laughs. It’s a fun watch, and the actors are all incredibly good-looking. Seems to be par for a Colombian film.
You know this was a big film in Colombia, because it was released on Christmas Day!
7 Soccer Movie Mom Rating = 7
Resources:
- Released: 2024-12-25 (Colombia)
- Spanish title is La Pena Máxima 2
- English title on Netflix is Maximum Penalty 2
- I watched this on Netflix
- In Spanish with English sub-titles
- 1 hr 27 mins
- IMDB
- Director: Mauricio Cruz Fortunato
- Stars: Santiago Alarcón (Abelardo) , Biassini Segura (Raul)
- Watch the Trailer in Spanish
