Movie · 1990 · Drama, Romance · 2h 24m · R · English
Curator score: 1.8/10 (12.7K ratings)
A gambler who trusted no one. A woman who risked everything. And a passion that brought them together in the most dangerous city in the world.
Overview
During the revolution, a high-stakes gambler arrives in Cuba seeking to win big in poker games. Along the way, he meets and falls in love with the wife of a Communist revolutionary.
Ratings
Curator score: 1.8/10
IMDb: 6.1/10
Letterboxd: 2.99/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 28%
TMDB: 5.8/10
Director
Sydney Pollack
Production
Universal Pictures, Mirage Enterprises
Cast
Robert Redford, Lena Olin, Alan Arkin, Tomas Milian, Daniel Davis, Tony Plana, Betsy Brantley, Lise Cutter, Richard Farnsworth, Mark Rydell, Vasek Simek, Fred Asparagus, Richard Portnow, Dion Anderson, Carmine Caridi, James Medina, Joe Lala, Salvador Levy, Bernie Pollack, Owen Roizman
Curator Review
Verdict
A glossy, old-school romantic adventure with real production polish and a strong sense of place, but it’s also overlong, politically soft-focus, and more interested in star charisma than dramatic urgency. If you want a handsome, slow-burn period romance set against revolution, it has appeal; if you want sharp politics or a truly gripping poker thriller, it underdelivers.
Best for
fans of elegant 90s adult dramas
viewers who like romantic melodrama with political backdrop
Sydney Pollack completists
Robert Redford charm vehicles
period pieces with lush production design
Skip if
you want fast pacing or action
you need a hard-edged revolution story
you prefer modern, psychologically intense romance
you’re impatient with old-fashioned studio melodrama
you want the gambling angle to dominate
Overview
Havana is the kind of movie that seems built from expensive fabrics, cigarette smoke, and half-remembered Hollywood romances. Sydney Pollack stages it with polish and a stately confidence, and the film’s greatest asset is its atmosphere: the pre-revolution Cuban setting feels lived-in, seductive, and doomed. Robert Redford leans fully into his late-career suave mode, and the movie clearly wants you to enjoy the spectacle of him moving through danger like it’s a card game he can still win.
Worth noting
The problem is that the film’s emotional engine never quite catches fire. The romance is meant to be sweeping, but it often feels schematic, and the political material stays at a tasteful distance when it needs sharper stakes. Lena Olin gives the film its most compelling charge, but the script keeps circling rather than deepening the relationship or the revolution around it.
Bottom line
What remains is a handsome, melancholy studio picture with enough craft to admire and enough friction to frustrate. It’s not a forgotten masterpiece, but it is an interesting example of a major director making a very old-fashioned movie at the edge of a new decade.
Top Letterboxd reviews
eely (3★) · 100 likes
Robert Redford went into the nineties on a mission and that mission was to be sexy as hell and only make movies about being sexy as hell and I appreciate it so much. Havana, Indecent Proposal, and Up Close & Personal are the holy trinity of Robert Redford sexual angst films.
Also, there’s a bullfighting poster hanging on the wall in Jack’s apartment that is almost exactly the same as the one hanging in the Bratter’s apartment in Barefoot in the Park and I like to think that Sydney Pollack put that there just for me.
Rafael "Mister Movie" Jovine (2.5★) · 99 likes
Action! - Lumet/Pollack: The Fight of the Century
Who knew? It turns out that Robert Redford's charm can take you so far.
On the one hand, the production of this picture is fantastic, with the background of a gambler who falls in love in Cuba on the eve of the Cuban revolution and featuring one of Dave Grusin's best works. In fact, the opening reminded me of something Martin Scorsese would do, with plenty of Casino vibes. And the acting… more
carrieandtracy · 70 likes
Man, that’s awkward.
eely (3★) · 54 likes
robert redford: what if I made a movie where I was all sweaty and I had a threesome and I kept taking off my shirt and having sex and also the cuban revolution was happening
sydney pollack: I’ll see what I can do
Blake Bergman "Various Spaghetti" (3★) · 53 likes
"Havana" is a 1990 film directed by Sydney Pollack. The stars Robert Redford in the leading role as Jack Weil, a gambler type that tends to live fast by the grit of his teeth and an abundance of suave nature. Things do get a bit more complicated for his liking as his lifestyle brought him to the location of Havana, Cuba in 1958 right before the revolution and transitional shift in countries government comes to be. Rather than maintaining an… more "Havana" is a 1990 film directed by Sydney Pollack. The stars Robert Redford in the leading role as Jack Weil, a gambler type that tends to live fast by the grit of his teeth and an abundance of suave nature. Things do get a bit more complicated for his liking as his lifestyle brought him to the location of Havana, Cuba in 1958 right before the revolution and transitional shift in countries government comes to be. Rather than maintaining an… more
Another story of glamour, longing, and self-invention in a world built on illusion.
Topics
period drama, romantic melodrama, political backdrop, slow-burn, old Hollywood style, lush production design, adult romance, revolution, melancholy, 90s studio film