Rating:  Summary: Good story, very unrealistic female character Review: The story is good and Sean is, as usual, Sean. However, the movie was ruined by the poor casting and character of the female role. She is incredibly shallow, immature, and petty. It is totally unrealistic. Although I watch the movie occasionally because I love Cuba and am a devoted Sean Connery fan, I am always angry and disappointed about the female's character.
Rating:  Summary: historical drama Review: very few of us now a days, know of the incidents and life in cuba and why fidel castro took power, from a corrupt gangster style goverment of the baustista goverment. sean connery plays a british mercenary, trying to scope out the situation for the in power goverment , and re-live a old fling with a old flame from north afrika, ww2 days. chris sarandon plays the handsome husband of brooke adams, who's family is that of the elite and powerful. see this movie and undersatnd the life that once was.
Rating:  Summary: Cuba, don't bother Review: I love movies, books and music...anything about Cuba and other caribbean cultures. This movie was awful! The acting is bad, the story is bad. Don't waste your time unless you need a nap. As great at the movie Havana is, is how bad the move Cuba is.
Rating:  Summary: Impressions. Review: *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.
Rating:  Summary: Stands the Test of Time Review: 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.
Rating:  Summary: Let's hear it for the location scout! Review: This awful adolescent drivel is saved only by Sean Connery and the breathtakingly accurate scenery. The late 50's interiors are dead on and throughout the movie, I kept wondering, how on earth did they get permission to shoot in Cuba? Of course they didn't - it was shot in Spain. Despite the interesting atmosphere and backstory, the story itself isn't cohesive and there are holes in it big enough to hold one of Batista's white baby grands. Perhaps the story would have held if the female lead had more strength. Brooke Adams portrays Alejandra Pulido with a here-again, gone-again Spanish accent and a weakness that betrays the character as written.
Rating:  Summary: When on DVD, MGM? Review: I've seen this movie twice, on late night exhibitions. No, I wasn't drunk. The movie certainly has a mood that will keep you tuned. At least it kept me. It's not about historic facts, but relations and how important they may become in an uncertain situation. I'm surprized such a joy isn't available on DVD yet, as we see so many trash being offered on this new format. Hope they don't wait to launch it until nobody remembers it.
Rating:  Summary: Not a well-known film, but very good Review: CUBA is a fine serio-comic story set in 1959 during the final stage of the Batista regime. Sean Connery is a mercenary brought to Cuba by one of Batista's generals (Martin Balsam) to help crush the threat of Castro's revolutionaries. Connery runs into a past lover, Brooke Adams, who is now the manager of a tobacco factory. As the couple get reacquainted, the political turmoil reaches a breaking point. CUBA isn't meant to be a detailed examination of a prominent historical event. Instead, Batista's downfall serves as a backdrop for the Connery/Adams relationship, and how their lives become intertwined with several other characters. The great supporting cast includes Jack Weston as an opportunistic American businessman, Denholm Elliott as a boozy pilot, Chris Sarandon as Adams' womanizing husband, and Hector Elizondo as a perceptive military officer. Director Richard Lester does an admirable job of mixing dramatic action with amusing comic bits. The film satirizes the mentality of military men and guerrillas in a somewhat zany way, without eliminating the more disturbing elements. There are no true "good guys" in the story, but viewers can empathize with Connery as he deals with the insanity around him. Curiously though, Brooke Adams' character comes off as rather unsympathetic. This is one of Connery's lesser-known films, which is too bad, because the movie deserves to be seen.
Rating:  Summary: Undiscovered Gem Review: A delightful movie that nobody seems to know about - Brooke Adams, Hector Elizondo, Denholm Elliot, Sean Connery - all fine performances in one of those films where the characters seem to continually cross each others' paths. Toothsome.
Rating:  Summary: The Movie World awaits a great drama re Pre_Castro Cuba Review: Rex Stewart Movie Review: Cuba The Movie World needs a great pre-Castro movie about Cuba. Unfortunately neither this nor Havana is it. In fact the limited glimpses in Godfather II have more impact than this entire Director appears to be working within a tight budget, but still fails. A drama must have drama. Cuba does not.. He does a poor job of maintaining 6/10 Sean Connery is the greatest, but the part does not allow much room whether the cinematographers/director have little understanding of the fundamentals of cinematography or whether they are simply so short of film is watchable, but enjoy the scenic tour, because it fails as a drama. Connery, like the Great George C. Scott, needs to be more careful about 1 Worth watching once. Assuming $1 rental on a slow Sunday afternoon. Even the critics can be wrong, Rex Stewart Rex Stewart rating Scale Assuming $1 rental on a slow Sunday afternoon. 2 Could watch it twice within three years without complaint. 3*** Worth a full price theatre ticket. 3 * . 4* An excellent movie. Worthy of purchase or multilpe rentals over several years. 5* Blockbuster. Overwhelming. Would own the expectations for the movie as I believe it is projected.
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