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Review:
 The
Cuban refugee that was to become Andy Garcia arrived on American
shores when he was about five, this was around 1961, and like
every other refugee his homeland has never left his mind.
So this leaves us with a political problem. This film is about the
refugee experience, and some in Hollywood have always liked Castro
and his regime. Garcia and co-writer G. Cabrera Infante have been
trying to make this film for about ten years, and until recently,
the politics of the situation have prevented it. Well, controversy
hasn't stopped anybody before.
Garcia plays a nightclub owner named Fico Fellove, an apolitical
guy coming from a family of intellectuals. But it's 1958, a
favorite year for filmmakers, as the revolution on the last day of
it is a perfect backdrop for pretty much anything with a mambo
beat and classy retro clothing. So we begin with our hero
celebrating his father Don Federico's (Tomas Milian) birthday
celebration at his “El Tropico” club. Here we meet Mom(Millie
Perkins), Fico's uncle Don Donoso(Richard Bradford), brothers Luis
(Nestor Carbonell) and Ricardo (Enrique Murciano), both of whom
are political activists, and Luis' wife Aurora (supermodel Ines
Sastre).
Havana 1958, no matter what side of the argument you are was a
land where politics trumped all. President Fulgencio Batista(Juan
Fernández) is seen as a clueless moron of a tyrant, and his
thuggish minions (Steven Bauer, Julio Oscar Mechoso et al)
spreading terror wherever they go.
Pretty much everyone would be glad to be rid of him. The question
was how to do it. Don Federico wants to go the impeachment route.
Luis is a member of a democratically inclined movement while
Ricardo is a fan of Fidel Castro(Gonzalo Menendez). Fico himself
just wants to maintain his lifestyle, while he and his unnamed
sidekick(Bill Murray) try to stay out of it. This is hard to do,
as Meyer Lansky(Dustin Hoffman), that famous mafioso, wants his
club. Luis dies a martyr and Ricardo joins up with Che'
Guevara(Jsu Garcia) in the bush. We get to see the widow Aurora
fall for Fico as Batista falls.
So far so good. But this is about the refugee experience and
Castro's people are portrayed as far worse than Batista's thugs
ever were. A party flack in a Maoist uniform(Elizabeth Peña)
storms our hero's club and proclaims that all saxophones must be
banished for political purposes. The revolution goes downhill from
there.
This is a very sad and winsome film. Garcia's “a plague on all
your houses” approach to the governance of Cuba is a new one, and
I'm pretty sure that there are going to be plenty of people who
object to it. It's a well made film, and we'll see on which side
the critics divide. It's sure an antidote to stuff like “The
Motorcycle Diaries” and the like, and is well worth a look.
Eric Lurio
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