Really Surprised!

Charming and brutal

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

It's 1958 Havana, Cuba. Fico Fellove (Andy Garcia) is a prominent nightclub owner. His father is a respected university professor. The successful Fellove family struggles to agree on the political change blowing in the winds. His revolutionary brother Ricardo gets arrested and he gets an old friend Captain Castel to help. Ricardo is released and runs off with Che Guevara. Meyer Lansky (Dustin Hoffman) comes to him to turn his establishment into a casino. When he turns Lansky down, a bomb explodes killing his girlfriend. His other brother Luis gets in a plot to overthrow Batista and restore democracy. Luis is killed and he falls for Luis' widow Aurora. Bill Murray plays his constant writer friend.The filming locations in Santo Domingo are beautiful. The story is a vast family drama which Andy Garcia wants to be more like Godfather. However it never gets beyond the early promise. Garcia is mostly doing a solo gig and he's not putting enough energy into it. I don't get the Bill Murray character. The sunny Caribbean feel of the movie takes away the inherit gritty dirty feel of the story. It's too long with too much side trips. Andy Garcia's directions lack the urgency. He needs help to bring intensity into the film.

After finished watching The Lost City DVD last week for the first time, I just checked how many Oscars this movie must have won. But sadly there was none. I am still trying to come to terms why in 2005 they won some as well as were there so many nominations for a pretty boring movie like 'Good night and good luck' while a brilliant piece of work like The Lost City did not even get a single nomination! Academy is so ridiculous!! Lost City is truly a Latino romantic drama with the right balance of love, joy, anguish despair and melancholy. It is of a sombre theme, but enriched with courage and hope and freedom for Fico in the end. I actually think Andy Garcia is the hero in this whole episode. His acting, music and directing stand tall out of many great things this movie renders. I knew he was an excellent actor alright but never thought he could be a maestro in combining music and movie direction in to such great levels! The story moves smoothly connecting each phase with the next one flawlessly. There are no serious flaws in the movie except for Aurora's occasionally conflicting character. It's sometimes hard to fathom whether she really wants Fico or she had an affair with Ernesto (Che)? Or her love is only for the revolution Fidel and Ernesto brought in? She is an enigma alright but acting goes well at par with the romantic and melancholic nature of the movie's main theme.All other actors have done real justice to their roles. Tomas Milian as the father does an exceptionally great job. He unrolls the love, tenderness, pain and the agony that belongs to a father figure of his calibre at that time, with very natural expressions. The writer (Bill Murray) adds lots of color to the movie with his philosophical, staid but witty dialogs and of course his profound acting. In fact he is the catalyst for Fico's growing frustration of the Cuban socio-political change that was radically initiated by Castro and Ernesto. In the end Fico and his family face the gruesome reality of the Cuban revolution when Ricardo; his own brother's behaviour see the demise of their uncle, devastating their age old family traditions and cohesion. It would be really interesting to watch this movie in the backdrop of 'Motorcycle Diaries' and compare the two polarized characters of the same Ernesto, depicted by two different directors. Poles apart!You may need some patience in the first 10 or 15 minutes to sit and try to gather pieces here and there but then only you will get in to a smoother, effortless flow of great movie making. You will not be disappointed - It certainly is a great movie!

IMDb ratings are usually a good indicator how good a movie is. Somehow on this title they fail. Kitsch, rubbed in, not enough development of relationships, unrealistic situations.. all makes it hard to have good acting.A good director gets the actors do the right thing and makes the movie grab you. For this title it's the opposite. It starts promising, but at some point you can't take all that anymore.If you like musicals and if you don't want to feel tears by yourself, but rather like when somebody puts eye-drops into your eyes and rubs the obvious under your nose, + make the Cuban revolution + Havana look like an unreal city filled with costumes (not clothes) and have everything as synthetically clean as a freshly built set, but not like real life, then you might enjoy the movie.It's like a child's view... definitely lacking either directing talent/skill or maturity.

I have finally decided to post here and especially regarding this "movie". first of all, short disclaimer if required; i am not biased simply because i am not Cuban, but i have visited the country a few times and READ its history from many points of view.also i am Caucasian.1st issue---ALL actors in the movie are WHITE the only exception being the musical stuff( frankly i find that outright racist ESPECIALLy when referring to a well mixed Latin country. i mean 99.99 % Cubans have at least someone of color or mixed in the family). to make matter worse i see that this REALITY CHECK aspect of the movie has been ignored across the board from newspaper reviews to the ones included here. this is the main reason that i found out that Cubans themselves on the island find this movie insulting regardless of their thoughts on Castro regime.2nd issue --- the whole movie deals with the suffering of a WEALTHY family + the movie makes out of the worst gangster in Cuban history someone that i am being almost literally told that i should LIKE.overall to me Andy Garcia has hit the BOTTOM in my favorites actors following this spectacular piece of mindless propaganda. bluntly insulting to me as a traveler that , like many others, has had the chance to see the facts from an outside perspective,the "bad" as much as the "good".