Havana
by Sydney Pollack
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DVD details
Actor: Alan Arkin, Daniel Davis, Lena Olin, Robert Redford, Tomas MilianDirector: Sydney Pollack
Brand: Universal
DVD: 2 Layers, Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 1.85:1
Running Time: 145 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-11-17
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Reviews of Havana
DVD Review: Havana Movie Soundtrack
Summary: 5 Stars
I really liked the music. Particularly when Robert Redford enters a club and there's a male singer (whose voice sounds alot like Jon Lucien). This same song plays at the end of the movie while the credits are rolling. I wonder who the artist is. They should have made a soundtrack of the movie. I would have bought it, just for that song.DVD Review: Top of the Line
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie was panned when it came out and for no reason. Many mis-guided people have compared it to "Casablanca." I really doubt that anyone watching this movie for the first time said: "Gee this reminds me of 'Casablanca'". This is a very different story. Redford's character is not a pseudo-intellectual like Bogart. Lena Olin's character is not some angel like Bergman. They are slightly seedy people who are thrown together because of outside forces. What makes them different is that underneath, they both have character. I find them much more believable than the characters in "Casablanca."
The movie is beautifully filmed. Redford is absolutely superb and he does a brilliant job of being a man who is not a romantic who falls in love. I highly recommend this film to everyone who wants to watch a serious adult movie about the reality of people rising to the occasion in troubled times.
DVD Review: A love story set against one of the sexiest, most dangerous and most glamorous cities in the world...
Summary: 3 Stars
Jack Weil, played by Robert Redford, feels at home in this corrupt city... He's a professional gambler looking for the game of his life... He played in every Elks Club and Moose Hall in America... He remembers every hand of every game and now he wants a shot, only one shot in Havana...
But while he is on the verge of winning everything Bobby Duran (Lena Olin) has lost all she ever knew... Olin plays the wife of a Cuban revolutionary, Raul Julia... Bobby has nothing to lose or to protect... And in a super-natural and strange way Jack reaches her... And so, as Cuba crumbles Jack is drawn in Bobby's world of the revolutionaries and, in one crucial moment he sees himself he must choose between the greatest card game of his life and the woman he loves...
There's a kind of exotic combination between Redford and Olin's characters... Between Redford's very American, blond, golden look and Olin's dark, intense Swedish expression...
Sydney Pollack's "Havana" is a love story that takes place during the week of Christmas, 1958 which was the last week Batista was in power before Castro came in... It was the last week of this kind of a circus that Havana was... An attractive city full of gambling, of burlesque, of every kind of hedonistic pleasure possible...
DVD Review: an underrated film
Summary: 4 Stars
Havana is a very underrated film notwithstanding the fact it is largely a remake of "Casablanca". The pace and plot kept me involved and entertained due to fine performances by all the cast in the leading roles. Havana is without any doubt Robert Redford's best film considering his somewhat limited acting range. Lina Olin is not miscast in the female lead as others suggest and Alan Arkin has never been better. Raul Julia almost steals the movie in the few scenes which feature him although his name is not included in the credits. Interestingly, Lina Olin, herself, almost steals her own most recent film "The Reader" with a very short part toward the end of that film. I agree with other opinions which say the best way to watch this film is to simply sit back and enjoy.DVD Review: More Marxist Propaganda from Hollywood
Summary: 1 Stars
This film has every Marxist cliche that you can shake a stick at. Hollywood, which has given us countless propaganda movies eulogizing Communist totalitarianism, does it again with this movie. The basic premise is that totalitarianism in that country is good because things were bad before. Which is like saying that because you have mobsters in New York or Las Vegas, we should impose a dictatorship, starve the people, indoctrinate them, militarize them, have total censorship and kill anyone who objects. In short, a liberal's dream come true.
Description of Havana
A high stakes gambler hustles for one last big score before the revolution overtakes havana. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 01/06/2004 Starring: Robert Redford Lena Olin Run time: 145 minutes Rating: R Director: Sydney PollackWhen Havana was released in 1990, a lot of reviewers unfavorably 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 to the American mainstream. 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're interested in the political upheavals in pre-Castro Cuba. --Jeff Shannon
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