By day, the brothers cut and tote fruit at the local banana plantation. Each night, Tato (Diego Luna) bikes home to his wife and growing family of niños while the single and happy-go-lucky Beto ( Gael Garcia Bernal) drinks cerveza, plays his accordion and sings with passion if not exactly skill.

But the brothers -- half-brothers, really -- have their dreams. Beto wants a singing contract. And even though he's a little too old to cling to delusions of sports glory, Tato longs for a shot at soccer stardom.

They both achieve their dreams and see them turn into nightmares in the serio-comic soccer soap opera Rudo y Cursi. It's a playful Spanish-language riff on the standard-issue sports drama, that journey from hunger to glory and fame, to drugs, loose women and gambling that is a familiar sports movie arc in any language.

Beto only wants that music deal. But when the talent scout Batuta (Guillermo Francella) sees him play "the beautiful game" he envisions a different sort of stardom. Batuta has to promise a record deal to motivate Beto's soccer play. Before you know it, the kid's the showboating star of a Mexico City squad, a guy whose cornball dance after each goal wins him a nickname -- "Cursi" (corny, vulgar).

Photos: 12 bars of Christmas

Cursi wrangles Tato a shot as a goalie with another team. And the two become the toast of Mexican soccer. That's when Tato's nickname "Rudo" (rough) starts to stick, when he adds a drug problem to his gambling addiction, and when Cursi meets the beautiful people he once could only worship on TV.

Writer-director Carlos Cuaron, younger brother of Alfonso Cuaron, wrote the film that made Luna and Bernal famous -- Y tu Mama Tambien (directed by Alfonso). The younger brother has made a scruffy, conventional and predictable film, one whose ambitions and gimmicks seem obvious. There's little conflict in it other than comical sibling rivalry until the third act when the brothers' dreams turn sour. Cuaron's solution to hiding the athletic shortcomings of his stars is to comically show reactions to plays on the field, not the actual games. Bernal and Luna have great sibling comic chemistry. And having the agent Batuta narrate this tale of the Mexican national obsession (with bribed coaches, fixed games, the works) lends enough whimsy to Rudo y Cursi to make even the corn go down easy.