HAVANA
A film review by Wayne V. Citrin
Copyright 1990 Wayne V. Citrin
It's December 1958, and a gambler (Robert Redford) is on his way to Havana to earn some money playing high-stakes poker, as he regularly does. On the boat, he does a favor for a beautiful woman (Lena Olin - THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING, ENEMIES, A LOVE STORY). Their paths cross again in Havana, and Redford spends the rest of the film pursuing both Olin and the big score. But the Batista government is on its last legs, the rebels are about to win, and the revolution ultimately upsets Redford's plans for both Olin and the score.
HAVANA starts off encouragingly, with a beautifully edited montage of scenes designed to make Havana seem sensual, exciting, and dangerous. This atmosphere is sustained for about an hour into the film, and then the love story takes over and things fall flat. Apart, Redford and Olin are fine. Redford (looking much older than I've ever seen him) is a convincing man of the world, and Olin's performance has considerable depth, giving the feeling that her character's political convictions are genuine. But when they get together, the chemistry isn't there. This is unfortunate, because it becomes obvious fairly early on that HAVANA is a remake of CASABLANCA, with Redford and Olin in the Bogart and Bergman roles. In the scenes without Olin, Redford pulls this off fairly well, but when he has to be tender with Olin it just seems lame and out of character. It's no spoiler to say that the film develops in much the same way CASABLANCA does, although the price that Redford is forced to pay at the end is much less than Bogart ultimately had to pay, which I felt trivialized the ending. The conclusion contains some rather incoherent events relating to the CIA's involvement in Batista's government, which I felt blunted the impact of the film (the incoherence, that is, not the presence of the CIA itself).
HAVANA does a very good job of presenting what the atmosphere and feel of the city must have been like at that time, at least to a visiting American. There's not much discussion of how the city must have seemed to poor Cubans and rebels, although that wasn't the point of the film and could be excused. The film does a good job of contrasting the decadence of the city with the war in the countryside and the brutality of the secret police that underlies everyday life.
The film was shot in Santo Domingo, and the filmmakers were impressively successful in reproducing the feeling of familiarity and strangeness that Havana must have presented to Americans of the late 1950s. Americans don't think much about Havana anymore; we're reminded here that the city was a (long) ferry ride away, and that Americans once considered the place not entirely foreign soil.
The supporting cast is good. Alan Arkin does an excellent job as Redford's friend, a casino manager with no illusions about what's coming. (This is the Claude Rains part.) The husband of the Olin character, played by Raul Julia in an uncredited role (due to a dispute over the billing to which Julia was entitled) is good in the Paul Henried part, and the actor who plays the chief of police (whose name I didn't catch) is also good.
In short, the film is not bad, but it's no CASABLANCA (although there's no shame in that). It needed a more convincing love story, and the ending should have both hurt more and been more exhilarating, in the manner of CASABLANCA.
I'd give it two-and-a-half stars (out of four).
Wayne
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