Customer Reviews

638 Ways to Kill Castro

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This DVD despite being made recently feels a little dated because most of the attempted assassins are now elderly. Since many of the attempts on Castro date to the 1960s and 1970s, the people involved are now aging. I'd like to know more about recent attempts as well.

It does provide a fascinating glimpse into the presidents of the US. In a short segment it breaks down the plans or assassination by president. It's kind of a shorthand for the politicians attitudes towards Cuba.

Unfortunately the one thing this movie really lacks is running time. For a movie that about 638 ways to kill Castro it barely covers a dozen.

Conspiracy-a-go-go enthusiasts will definitely want a peek at British director Dollan Cannell's documentary, "638 Ways to Kill Castro".

Mixing archival footage with some knowledgeable talking heads (including a surprising number of would-be assassins-it's hard to believe this many lived to tell their tale!), Cannell traces the evolution of Cuban politics via a recap of literally hundreds of attempts by the U.S. government to knock off Fidel over the years.

The number in the title (638) is derived from a list compiled by a couple of former members of Castro's security team (they are among the interviewees). They even go so far as to crunch the numbers by U.S. presidential administration (thier resulting breakdown may surprise you.)

The film begins its timeline in 1959, the year that the CIA received the first official go-ahead to take Castro out. The initial schemes sound like they were hatched by Wile E. Coyote and his Acme Intelligence Agency. The plans ranged from relatively benign subversion (making his beard fall out, spraying a TV station with LSD while Castro was on air,a contingency to accuse Cuba of zapping John Glenn's space capsule with "magnetic rays," had Glenn not made it back to Earth) to more ominous (a poisoned diving suit, booby trapping shellfish in Castro's favorite scuba diving spot with dynamite, and most famously, planting poisoned and/or exploding cigars into his humidor).

Although Cannell initially appears to be playing for yucks (especially with the exploding cigar type shtick) the underlying theme of the documentary soon becomes much more sobering. The most chilling revelation arises from an examination of the possible machinations behind the downing of a commercial Cuban airliner off of Barbados in 1976.

This is a fascinating film; the only criticism I would give it is the director's "wacky" approach (that kooky CIA and their nutty ideas!)-it doesn't quite match the subject matter at times. My favorite quote from the doc sums it all up quite nicely-when asked to explain the decades-long obsession about Castro by one administration after another, one pundit cracks "There's just something about (Castro's) Cuba that affects these administrations like the full moon affects a werewolf...there's no real logic at work here."

`638 Ways to Kill Castro' is a documentary looking at the various ways people and governments have tried to assassinate Fidel Castro over the years.

This film has a series of interviews with government officials and would-be assassins as they explain the reasoning and methods behind their actions. Some of the attempts were truly ludicrous and make for humorous viewing and yet others were so chilling it makes you wonder what would have happened if they had succeeded.

The documentary itself is a little dry in places, but is interesting enough to keep your attention until the end. There also some extras which include interviews with the director and Jimmy Carter and more besides, which add another fascinating insight to the film and history of Cuba and Castro.

If you are interested in Cuban history or Castro then this is well worth checking out, but if you only have a passing interest I would suggest you give this a miss and try `Comandante' by Oliver Stone instead, which is a more up-to-date interview with Castro himself and touches upon some of the themes discussed here.

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a different perspective on fidel castro, it doesnt really cover this many ways to kill him but the video was really good, would definitely recommend

one-sided "demonized castro" perspective with a toss in a light and broadway spectacle soundtrack, made for mass consumption of this view.

if you do watch this, balance it out by watching "Fidel - The Untold Story". what "638 ways" sweeps under the rug is how cuba was run by imperial puppetmen and never had regulating power of it's own. the reasons for the assassinations, reinstate more puppetmen.

This is just another one of a series of video documentaries and books that builds up the propaganda myth surrounding the persona of Fidel Castro. The consensus by most analysts is that Castro turned out to be more of an oppressor than a liberator and thus the desire of many to kill him. Enrique Ovares- the first conspirator presented, who had been a schoolmate of Castro, reflects this feeling of betrayal when Fidel abandoned democratic ideals for a dictatorship. Ovares never went thru with his conspiracy to kill Castro, as did most of the people presented in this video. The video covers a number of planned assassination plots against the Cuban tyrant- none ever tried and resulting in an explosion or a shot been fired. The plans ranged from mild (making his beard fall out, spraying a TV station with LSD while Castro was on the air, a contingency to accuse Cuba of shooting John Glenn's space capsule with "magnetic rays," had Glenn not made it back to Earth) to more serious (firing weapons or setting off explosives; poisoned milkshake, cigar or diving suit; to booby trapped shellfish). In actuality, because of the tight security around Castro, there were more assassination attempts carried out on American Presidents (JFK, Ford, Reagan and Obama) than there ever were on Castro since 1959. Nevertheless, it may turn out to be an entertaining video for those who like cloak and dagger themes. Possibly the two biggest beneficiaries of this video are Fidel Castro, as it builds up his mythical status, and his former security chief turned capitalist author Fabian Escalante. My question to the producers of this video is when does the video or book come out on the thousands of Cuban dissidents that Castro killed, jailed, or exiled? If you are looking for an informative book or video on Fidel Castro or the Cuban Revolution, this is not the one to buy! I recommend more informative writings by Geyer, Thomas, Szluc, Quirk, Encinosa, Latell, Coltman, or even my own book about Memories from the Land of the Intolerant Tyrant (available from Blue Note Books) over this one.