The Lost City Review

Andy Garcia sends a heartfelt but rather too rambling love letter to his native Havana. Of course the reality is that few of his Cuban compatriots will ever get to see The Lost City, his debut directorial feature being heavily critical of the Castro dictatorship and, more controversially, of the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara (played by a sneering Jsu Garcia). This is perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the film; stripping away that Robin Hood hero image immortalised on a billion T-shirts, mugs and doodads (that's one-up for the capitalists!), to reveal the ugly face of fascism. However, it's a story of la revolución tied up with a stultifying family saga.

As well as calling the shots behind the camera, Garcia takes centre stage playing Fico Fellove, owner of Havana's most prestigious nightclub El Tropico. But between the exuberant bursts of salsa and semi-clad women prancing about in feather boas, the mood is dark. Backstage, in a rather contrived scene, Fico comes to blows with little brother Ricardo (Enrique Murciano). The kid is full of crazy ideas about the redistribution of wealth and warns the family, including wealthy patriarch Don Federico (Tomas Milian) and middle brother Luis (Nestor Carbonell), about imminent change. When the uprising begins, Ricardo is in the thick of it and Fico is dismayed to find that Luis has also been roped into a plot to assassinate President Batista (Juan Fernández).

The upside to Luis' sudden decampment is that it allows Fico the chance to get cosy with his wife, the beautiful but uninteresting Aurora (Inés Sastre). It is a slow-burning romance which fails to set the screen on fire. Even the ubiquitous 'happy together' montage feels heavily drawn out. As the violence of the revolution intensifies, Fico is threatened with losing Aurora along with his brothers and Garcia gets to play every shade of moody.