Havana
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Movie Reviews of Havana
Movie Review: an underrated film
Summary: 4 Stars
Havana is a very underrated film notwithstanding the fact it is largely a remake of "Casablanca". The pace and plot kept me involved and entertained due to fine performances by all the cast in the leading roles. Havana is without any doubt Robert Redford's best film considering his somewhat limited acting range. Lina Olin is not miscast in the female lead as others suggest and Alan Arkin has never been better. Raul Julia almost steals the movie in the few scenes which feature him although his name is not included in the credits. Interestingly, Lina Olin, herself, almost steals her own most recent film "The Reader" with a very short part toward the end of that film. I agree with other opinions which say the best way to watch this film is to simply sit back and enjoy.Movie Review: This is one of Redford's better (recent) films.
Summary: 4 Stars
A great film. Beautiful, romantic, intriguing... periodMovie Review: Plenty of Potential
Summary: 3 Stars
Although I can't give this one four stars, I do like the movie for its potential. Casablanca -- definitely not. But this could have been the Caribbean equivalent of "The Quiet American", one of the best movies in twenty years. Subtracting for flawed performance by Redford, some odd lapses in scripting, and pacing, it is still a very good movie. Redford's delivery was often flat. A cynical gambler finds true love (the oft-referred-to comparison to Casablanca), but doesn't look as if he cares all that much (Bogey got good and hammered, Redford acts like he's out of change for the parking meter). Then sometimes his performance sparkles. Some of the editing seemed to give us punch lines after removing the setup lines. I'm sure those cuts were made due to time restraints, but other scenes drag on overmuch and would have made better cuts. Raul Julia's name missing from both opening and closing credits was quite bizarre. Still very much worth watching, and more than once.Movie Review: Disappointing
Summary: 2 Stars
It could have been a good one. But everything seems to be out of focus. The love story does not work between Redford and Lena Olin, the story is too simplistic: revolutionaries are good and the Batista regime is evil. What a way to learn some of your neighbor's history! Of course there's more than that.
Simplifying the views may be good for propaganda's sake but as for history or even plain entertainment you need to give us something better.
We may not know or care about Cuba's recent history but we know when the teacher is playing sides.
I don't understand how a good director like Pollack can sell himself -and his reputation- so cheap to the Hollywood-propaganda-industry.
It all comes down to this: the ones who dream about revolution are the wealthy and the rich, but powerless, who think themselves better than the ones who have power, and want to use the ones who don't have riches nor power for their own goals.
There have been, of course, exceptions. See Durruti, the Spanish anarchist, for one example. He belonged to the humblest and poorest class of society. But how did he end? Killed during the Spanish Civil War by not others than the Communists.
Movie Review: A decent try but no cigar
Summary: 2 Stars
For some reason no-one has ever managed to make a good film about the Cuban Revolution, with Hollywood often drawing in some of its biggest stars - usually in the hope of another Casablanca - and missing by a mile. Case in point: Havana, a disappointingly dull misfire from Sydney Pollack and Robert Redford that never catches fire for all the money on the screen. The night scenes are beautifully shot and the script makes half-hearted attempts to examine the moral contradictions in the last days of Battista's rule, but it's pretty uninvolving stuff not helped by the total lack of chemistry between Redford and Lena Olin. The few potentially good scenes never quite work and the compensations are largely cosmetic, although Alan Arkin and Richard Farnsworth offer reliable support and Terence Marsh's production design is superb. Not terrible, just not terribly good. Still, at least it's better than Cuba or Che.