davebennett88 This film only has 4 problems with it, that I can see. 1. Its raison d'être. 2. The screenplay. 3. The acting. 4. The directing. The actors, devoid of any visible passion, sleepwalk through their lines. The attempted "style" Pollack seems to be shooting for rings as tinny and artificial as Hollywood. The Left-loving and sun-damaged Redford does his best to act debonair, but maybe a bit too much. Lena is stunning as always, but her Prozac-induced acting serves only to make the film mildly amusing...and very mildly at that. The movie was doomed before Pollack ever yelled "action." It's as if a film school teacher hastily threw together a bunch of ingredients straight out of Casablanca, then instructed "only make it set in Havana...go!" and expected a masterpiece. Asking a viewer who's not a socialist himself to care about a cause as nefarious as Castro's Communist Cuba is a stretch for anyone with a modicum of patriotism and knowledge of history, no matter how beautiful the leading couple may try to be or how many gratuitous flesh scenes are thrown in. The parallels to the classic "Casablanca" are numerous and haranguing; from the film's city name to the suave man-about-town leading character who wonders if he should sacrifice his personal desires for a(n allegedly) greater cause, to his illicit love interest's being a married Swedish woman loyal to her husband's political passion. Besides being a shameless rip-off of an actually good motion picture, this film flops because it fails to make us care about anyone in it. Other than left-wing ideologues, who would ever feel moved to care about an adulterous gambler and a couple of communist revolutionaries? Victor Laszlo was on a valid mission--to combat the radical politics of worldwide domination, tyranny and murder. Rick and Ilsa fell in love before he ever found out about her marriage, and we cared because we felt they belonged together, yet understood the more compelling cause that forced them to remain apart. This film tried to copy a similar formula with the cause of Communist revolution, but we all know the results: a dictator far more murderous than Batista, who has kept his country mired in misery and mediocrity ever since.

werner-29 I've seen it at the movies when it was released - it captured me! I bought the DVD some ten years later and I've watched it about 3x so far - and with every time I've watched it, it got worse. I haven't quite managed to put my finger on it as to the "why?" I mean, the ingredients are there: Great, experienced actors with an impressive track record and delivering great performances, a great location, the material/historic backdrop feels authentic and should make for some additional drama in its own right, music by - come on! That's GOTTA count for something - Dave Grusin, an experienced director and a great book. But something's completely - I mean COMPLETELY! - off about the whole thing... It "feels" like coffee that's been sitting in the pot all day, like veggies that have been simmering for a hair too long, like whipped cream that's been in the sun for a few seconds too long... shall I go on? But why? WHAT exactly is it? Is it the timing? I'm thinking, it must have to do with the timing and pace of the flick, every line of dialog feels just shallow and almost empty and in a way corny, when they deliver it. Maybe Redford tries to hard to be all cool about this, maybe Olin wants to come across as Latina too hard, the entire thing feels as if everyone had overeaten and was tired from that when coming to the set... It's a shame... the material COULD have made for another classic much along the lines of its famous precursor. But in the end, it all feels like wanting to replace Coca Cola by Pepsi - not the real thing and totally dispensable... The box-office failure is totally deserved in my view...

Jack Stachler Substitute Jack (gambler) for Rick (cafe owner). Then, Bobby (wife of Arturo) for Ilsa. Finally, Arturo(revolutionary) for Victor. I think you end end up with a modern-day "Casablanca". Of course some would say it's mixing apples (Nazis) and oranges (Communists). But I think the plot outline and ultimate goal of the hero risking his life to save the lives of the heroine and her husband are similar. Not only did Jack find his soul but found the love that was missing all his life. Like Rick, in the end Jack did the right thing. Also, some of the scenes reminded me of the Godfather, Part II. The film could have been edited a little better. Overall, I thought it was a very entertaining film.

tcabarga Many viewers have noted that Havana is essentially Casablanca in the Caribbean, which is certainly true. But I found the same apocalyptic tension in Havana as in Casablanca, although not quite as effective the second time around. Others criticized the dialogue. I thought it was exceptionally mature, and subtle, which may be what threw some of the reviewers in this forum, who maybe would have wanted something more bombastic. The plot development was very compressed - things had to happen very quickly, and so some thought they happened far too quickly. But I thought Olin in particular showed all of the pain and turmoil necessary to make her quick transitions of emotion believable. You have to believe that the times were so tumultuous that people had to adjust very quickly to changing circumstances. As for Jack falling in love with Bobby so fast, that's entirely believable, and the look they exchanged at the party where Jack meets her husband for the first time was our signal that this love affair was happening, and was one of those insane passions that overtake people, not infrequently, and in this case, again, against the apocalyptic backdrop of this incipient revolution, which made all involved feel very much at loose ends, ready for, or dreading, the vast changes about to happen to them. I though the end was too dragged out, but other than that, the movie mostly plausible.