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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Impressions., April 2, 2003
By A Customer
*Cuba* may be the best movie you've never heard of. The setting is 1958, just before the final collapse of the Batista regime. Sean Connery stars as a British mercenary with the odd name of Dapes, whom Batista's colonels hope will help them to stamp out Fidel Castro's revolutionaries. However, Connery pretty much figures out -- almost as soon as he arrives -- that Batista's cause will be lost, and so his attempts to guide the incompetent military are rather half-hearted. He's much more interested in reviving a love affair with an old flame, Brooke Adams (surprisingly glamorous, but with an on-again, off-again accent). Problem is, she's married to the profligate son (Chris Sarandon) of one of Cuba's wealthiest industrialists . . . and it's a lifestyle that rather fits in with her imperial demeanor. (She runs the cigar factory and the rum distillery while her husband gets drunk and chases the skirts of the hired help.) The movie does not pretend to be a terribly accurate account of the Cuban Revolution. What director Richard Lester goes for instead are impressionistic sketches of the land, its people, and its culture. All the stereotypes are here, lovingly rendered: the fat, pompous jefes; the sultry women; the tacky gringo culture superimposed on the place for the visiting American businessmen (one of whom is the always-welcome Jack Weston, in a terrifically sleazy performance); the cigar factories; the prostitutes; the skinny kids playing street baseball; posters of politicos; languid bathers poolside; tropical drinks with the little umbrellas . . . get the idea? The movie succeeds spectacularly in delineating the death-throes of a way of life. Havana in particular seems deserted, denuded of people: even blonde American strippers can't find an audience. *Cuba* is a poignant, and at times funny, daguerreotype of a nation filled with ghosts, just on the cusp of revolution.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stands the Test of Time, January 7, 2003
This movie is on any list of my family's 10 favorite movies. We saw it in the theater when it was new, and hoarded the homemade videotape made from a TV broadcast, which was a major event in this household. Finally on DVD - it's wonderful that now we can see it in both widescreen and non. The film rewards repeated viewing, since eventually you realize that all the comic business ties in with all the main plot lines. I think this mixture of relevant-to-the-plot background comic bits throughout a film must be Richard Lester's forte, since he does it so well in all of his movies. Here the comic bits are superb - there really are no loose ends! Every character, every actor is wonderful, even the bit parts. Jack Weston gives one of the best performances of his life. It lingers in the imagination as THE picture of life at every stratum in Cuba at the end of the 1950s, even though (as has been observed in other reviews) the locations were really in Spain. The colors, the ambience, even the music - wonderful. It's obvious to me, anyway, that this movie stands the test of time...it has survived to be reborn in DVD format. Thank goodness! - Because it deserves to be remembered and enjoyed.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Snapshot of Cuba during the Castro revolution, July 21, 2004
This little gem of a movie hasn't lost its interest 25 years after it was shot. It offers a snapshot of Cuba during the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro that replaced the corrupt regime of Fulgencio Batista.
"Cuba" was made at Shepperton Studios, which is less well known than Ealing Studios, but produced a series of high-quality, low-budget films. This semi-documentary showcases Sean Connery as a British soldier-of-fortune who has been invited to Havana to rid the country of Castro's rebels. He recognizes an unstoppable force and spends more time trying to woo a former girlfriend (Brooke Adams) from her toy boy husband than dealing with the rebels. It's not much of a story: Connery and Adams aren't required to provide much more than eye-candy while the real action takes place in the background.
There are some wonderful vignettes of the wealthy, pampered Spanish ruling class with their beautiful mansions, fashionable clothing and decadent entertainment. The mixed-race general population, in contrast, lives in squalor. In one scene groups of women wait outside a prison every day hoping for news of their disappeared husbands and fathers. There's not much doubt where the director's sympathies lie. And there lies both the strength and weakness of the movie. Your chances of enjoying the movie depend entirely on your own politics. If you see Fidel Castro as a communist stooge, the slight plot isn't nearly enough to compensate for the movie's propagandistic tendencies. If your sympathies are with the victims of the dictatorial Batista regime, "Cuba" is an eye into the past.
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