havana

Director: sydney pollack

Actor: robert redford,lena olin,alan arkin,tomas milian

Data Published: Fri Dec 14 1990

Genres: Drama,Romance,War

Key Words: cuba,gambler,poker the card game,rebellion,rebel

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099747/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_(film)

Description: Havana is a movie starring Robert Redford, Lena Olin, and Alan Arkin. In 1950s Cuba, a professional gambler falls for a woman heavily involved in the revolution movement.

Plot: The film is set on the eve of the Cuban Revolution's victory. On Christmas Eve, 1958, aboard the boat from Miami to Havana, Roberta Duran (Lena Olin) enlists the aid of Jack Weil (Robert Redford) in smuggling U.S. Army Signal Corps radios destined for the revolutionaries in the hills. Weil agrees only because he is romantically interested in her. When they rendezvous for the "payoff," Roberta reveals that she is married, dashing Weil's hopes. In Havana, Weil meets up with a Cuban journalist acquaintance (Tony Plana) and during a night on the town, they run into Roberta and her husband, Dr. Arturo Duran. Duran (Raúl Juliá) is a Revolutionary leader. When Roberta points Weil out to him, Duran invites Weil to join them for dinner and asks Weil for further aid to the cause. Weil turns him down, even after Duran outlines the desperate situation confronting the Cuban majority. The next morning, after a night of debauchery for Weil but one of police arrests for the revolutionaries, Weil reads a newspaper account of Duran's arrest and death. In shock, he continues with the planned poker game, coincidentally meeting the head of the secret police. He learns that Roberta was also arrested and tortured in custody. He pressures another player in debt to him to obtain her release. Shaken by her husband's death and her own experience in jail, she agrees to let him shelter her in his apartment but disappears that afternoon. Realizing that he is in love with Roberta and encouraged by an old gambling friend, Weil drives into Cuba's interior to find her at Duran's old estate. He persuades her to return with him to Havana and to leave Cuba with him. When she asks, he explains that a lump on his arm contains a diamond that he had sewn into his arm in his youth as insurance. He makes arrangements for her to leave Cuba via boat, but on his return to the apartment, he is assaulted by two Cubans, who inform him that Duran demands for him to get Roberta out of the country. Weil has an acquaintance from CIA, Marion Chigwell (Daniel Davis), confirms that Duran is still alive. He intimidates Chigwell to work with him toward freeing Duran. Pretending to work for the CIA, Weil goes to see Duran, who is held by the chief of the secret police (SIM). He tells the chief that Washington, DC, has new plans for Duran and wants him released, with a payoff of $50,000. He "orders" the chief to have Duran cleaned up and dressed (Duran had been tortured and was in extremely bad shape) and taken to his house. Weil goes to a doctor and then a jeweler to sell the diamond to raise the cash for Duran's release. Back at his apartment, he informs Roberta, who had decided to make a life with him, of her husband being still alive. In shock, she leaves on her own to find her husband. Meanwhile, Weil had blown the big game with high rollers, for whom he had been angling since the day he arrived in Havana. The casino's manager, Joe Volpi (Alan Arkin), forgives him, knowing he had made rescuing Roberta his priority. At New Year's Eve, 1959, the insurrection is won by the revolutionaries. The upper class, the government and the secret police all leave their lavish parties to make a mad dash to the ports and airport to leave the country. The people pour into the streets, celebrating the victory by trashing the casinos and dancing. Weil and Volpi agree that it is time for them to leave. The next morning, Weil is in a restaurant preparing to depart. He sees Chigwell who informs him that he is working on a new book now, "The Cuisine of Indochina." Not long after, Roberta shows up to wish him farewell. She sees the bandage on his arm and discovers it had cost him to save her husband for her. They hug goodbye. She remains with the Revolution, and he has been changed by it. Four years later in 1963, Jack drives down to the Florida Keys and gazes across the sea toward Havana, hoping to see a boat that might bring Roberta on board. He knows the ferry is no longer running. However, he does this every year in the hopes he may someday see Roberta again. He also realizes that the changes in Cuba were being echoed in the changes of the 1960s happening in the United States. It is a new decade.