Opening in limited release -- mostly in art houses -- is The Crime of Father Amaro (El Crimen del Padre Amaro) at once the most successful Mexican film in the history of the Mexican box office and the most controversial -- primarily because all of the Catholic priests in the film are depicted as corrupt. Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune praises the film for its bravery "in its condemnations of social and religious hypocrisy and its exposé of political corruption." However, Stephen Holden in the New York Times comments that what probably accounted for the movie's popularity in Mexico isn't its indictment of church corruption "but its prurient, nostril-flaring portrait of a handsome young clergyman violating his vows of celibacy" with a 16-year-old parishioner. Jack Mathews of the New York Daily News also suggests that Father Amaro, portrayed by Gael García Bernal (Y tu Mamá También) as "an inherently decent man who's simply overcome by his physical needs ... comes off as another pedophile in a frock. You'd have to hose this guy down if he were driving a school bus." But Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times finds García Bernal's performance impressive. "He makes Padre Amaro into a more convincingly complex character than we might expect," he writes.