Review

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HAVANA. Starring Robert Redford,
Lena Olin, Alan Arkin, Raul Julia.
Directed by Sydney Pollack. At Cineplex
Odeon theatres.

Those adventurous, living-in-the-fast-
lane, guys. Just when fortune smiles, they
get waylaid by a good looking, vulnerable
woman with a passionate commitment to a
cause. Like card-shark Jack Wile. Before
you can say, “aces high,” the anti-hero of the
film, Havana, is sucked into the maelstrom
of contemporary events.

Such a premise, used through several
decades of cinematic history, underlies
Havana. In this Christmas release an aging
Robert Redford (honest enough not to try a
cosmetic face-lift) is diverted from a life-
long pursuit of a high-stakes game to try his
hand at something he’s always avoided —
political involvement.

This film has been compared to Casa-
blanca, and for good reason. The atmos-
phere is casinos, strip-bars and thick walls to
keep out the tropical heat. It’s ice-cream
suits and Panama hats. It’s Redford walking
down a Havana street, slightly hunched, cig-
arette pinched between thumb and fore-

FRC HOLIDAY DINNER
Sunday, December 30, 1990, 1 p.m.
600 Campbell Avenue
Live Orchestra Good Food
Advance tickets: 253-8180; 278-8779;
253-3032; 254-9932.

for peace and
social progress

VANCOUVER AND DISTRICT
LABOUK COUNCIL

24 Pacific Tribune, December 17, 1990

Robert Redford and Lena Olin in Havana.

finger, Bogey style. As for the theme ...
well, re-read the first paragraphs.

Unfortunately, the film’s conscious mir-
roring of the old screen chestnut aren’t
enough to recommend it— well-intentioned
though it is.

Havana pricks our interest at the start,
when Jack the gambler meets Roberta the
femme fatale (Lena Olin) aboard the regular
ferry to Havana. It’s 1959, Christmas time
and things are about to happen in America’s
playground.

Redford’s character, Jack, agrees for a
price to drive the woman’s car off the ferry.
He knows it contains something the customs
officials shouldn’t see. Worldly-wise Jack
also knows it could mean a stretch in a
Cuban jail cell, but who can resist such a
pretty face?

Cut to daylight and the ferry dock. Jack
glibly bribes his way past customs, and
heads for the target casino. He meets some
old cronies, including the. house manager
(Alan Arkin). Jack is direct: he wants a
private game with high rollers, to make the
jackpot he’s always sniffed at but never quite
achieved.

The trouble is, Jack keeps running into
Roberta, first during the post-ferry rendez-
vous to exchange cash for car keys, and later
with her husband, Arturo Duran (Raul Julia).
Duran is from the Cuban aristocracy, but it’s
soon clear he (like a certain real-life famous
Cuban of upper-class background) is on the
side of the imminent revolution.

“There are two kinds of people in Cuba,”
the smiling, composed Duran tells Jack.
“Those who are torturable, and those who
are untorturable.” Duran has been part of the
latter. But these are desperate days for the
crumbling Batista regime, and the formerly
untouchable are no longer safe; Arturo and
Roberta are soon incarcerated.

Through bribery, Jack gets Roberta free
after the papers carry the news of her
husband’s death. That sets the stage for
Jack’s conversion into a very helpful sym-
pathizer, and for the love affair with the
widow.

Fairly predictable, indeed» But what
makes Havana fall below the grade is a

mundane script that has pretensions of being
profound, and love scenes that don’t catch
fire. It’s hard to find much empathy for the
lovers, what with Redford’s constantly cool
demeanour and Olin’s performance. She is
supposed to be a committed revolutionary,
but except for a brief scene of defiance in a
prison, she comes across as a continually lost
soul.

That’s disappointing, because Havanaef-
fectively sets the seedy scene of U.S. corrup-

tion, in the form of a neon-lit city that never —

sleeps because there’s always a casino or
strip-club open. Its strengths include some
dramatically juxtaposed images: Jack in
sexual liaison with two American women in
his Havana apartment, intercut with scenes
of underground revolutionaries pursued,
and shot, by the dreaded SIM secret police.

Withholding an unconditional recom-
mendation for this film is all the more
frustrating because Havana is sympathetic
to the Cuban revolution. And this movie
doesn’t shirk at exposing the connections of
the CIA and American big business with the
hated former government of Cuba. It also
hints at things to come as, on the morning
after the New Year’s Eve revolution, a U.S.

agent tells Jack he’s heading for Indochina ~

(and Jack, amusingly, doesn’t know where
that is).

And, for what it’s worth, the film uses
actual footage of the real city, mainly shots’
of the waterfront. (Street scenes were repor-
tedly shot in Santo Domingo.) Mysteriously,
the source of the footage goes uncredited —
although there is a reference to information
provided by a Cuban-American society —
as does the performance of Julia.

The film’s epilogue has Jack looking
across the water from the Florida’s Key West
in 1963. He reflects that he might always see

a certain someone come that way, because —

after all, Castro has been on the Jack Parr
show. But he also knows those 90 marine
miles are an unbridgeable gulf for
Americans, and, thanks to a continuingly
hostile United States government, they still
are.

—Dan Keeton

Seasons Greetings

to all our friends and neig
in working for improvec
year ahead. We wish you a

hbours join with us
& in the

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