Director Sydney Pollack and Robert Redford join forces to tell the story of high-rolling gambler Jack Weil. Hoping to be pushed to the edge in a place ripe for action, Weil heads to Havana at Christmastime, 1958. Cuba is experiencing prerevolutionary rumblings, and he has a theory that gamblers are more adventuresome when the bullets start flying. Once he arrives, he ends up falling in with revolutionaries and meets a glamorous Swede named Bobby Duran (Lena Olin) and her wealthy husband, revolutionary leader Arturo Duran. Suddenly Jack finds himself making radical gestures, braving financial loss and life-threatening situations in an attempt to save her from dictator Batista’s men. Sexual attraction slowly leads the way to political awareness, matching the amount of time it takes for the beginnings of social change. Pollack and Redford’s seventh collaboration has a dramatic romantic sweep that’s augmented by crisp luminous images that create a sense of heightened reality.
2.
A gambler who trusted no one. A woman who risked everything. And a passion that brought them together in the most dangerous city in the world.
High-rolling poker player Jack Weil (Redford) is trying to make one big score in 1958 Havana, a pleasure-seeker's paradise on the verge of revolution. But his plan doesn't include falling for Roberta, the beautiful, enigmatic wife of revolutionary Arturo Duran. After Arturo is removed by the police, Jack is drawn closer to Roberta, who ignites a passion that threatens his last chance for the big score.
3.
When Havana was released in 1990, a lot of reviewers unfavourably compared it to Casablanca, and those comparisons (in addition to audience indifference) turned the film into a box-office disaster. It deserved a better fate, because, while this is certainly no masterpiece, it's an intelligent and lavishly produced film about a chapter of history--the final days of Cuba under the collapsing Batista regime--that remains largely unfamiliar. It's a compelling political backdrop for the story of a high-stakes gambler (Robert Redford) who comes to Cuba seeking the big score in poker games, following his expectation that high rollers will bet wildly as the Cuban government crashes around their heads. In Havana, Redford meets the wife (Lena Olin) of a Communist revolutionary (Raul Julia) with ties to Fidel Castro, and their attraction becomes powerfully mutual after her husband is presumed killed by Cuban police. What follows, as Cuba falls and Redford's character is forced into a crisis of conscience, is a mini-epic love story with tragic overtones, handled with great skill (albeit lagging pace) by long-time Redford collaborator Sydney Pollack. True, it's not nearly as memorable as Casablanca, but this is a worthwhile film, especially if you are interested in the political upheavals in pre-Castro Cuba. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
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