MovieChat Forums > Havana (1990) Discussion > 'Casablanca' remake

'Casablanca' remake

posted 14 years ago by Khpeev
9 replies | jump to latest

Did really nobody see that?!?
The plot is so close. The situacion, the characters, the
events...
Like someone once has sad: "every great story was told before"
GREAT MOVIE!
For me, Pollack and Redford make a reverance to the all time classic thru
the "Caribian Pearl" tragic story.

"lasciate ogne speranza voi ch'intrate"

[–] bobd07-797-423186 14 years ago

You make a great point.This is very much an homage to Casablanca.Just set in a different time and place.I thought it was very well done.Just got to see it again on Starz the other day.

[–] SlowRain 14 years ago

Yep. I think a lot of people notice the similarity. I like them both, but prefer Havana.

The only second chance you get is to make the same mistake twice. - David Mamet

[–] RondoHatton 14 years ago

"Remake" Try ripoff!!

"Stalker?"
"Yup, bigtime"

[–] flicky-3 13 years ago

I enjoyed this movie a lot more than Casablanca, I thought that Jack's character was much more fleshed out than Bogart's and that makes a huge difference.

Scenery/locale etc. was great mostly because it was in color. That's not fair to Casablanca considering it was made over 40 years earlier but it still made Havana the better movie for me.

[–] Wryter47-1 13 years ago

The parallels are certainly there, but Havana is dirtier and messier and less triumphalist to me. It is one of Redford's seriously good films, although I still hate the gauzy lens in all the closeups involving him. It's like watching a bad 50s movie in that regard. The love story is a little harder to grasp since the two in Havana only knew each other a brief time, whereas Rick and thing knew each other for much longer.

I kept looking for an outburst somewhere along the line, either over the coming revolution or the star-crossed lovers or whatever, but it didn't happen for me.

Still an excellent film. It just occurred to me that if the revolution hadn't happened, Cuba today would be a lot like the Dominican Republic (where it was made) and no one would know the difference.

[–] Rgerpu 13 years ago

Did really nobody see that?!?

Actually, almost everybody saw it... Including the early 90s critics who thrashed the movie based on this.

Which is, IMHO, not fair.

The Pollack-Redford combination became cheesy already years before this movie, this kind of "political awareness" also, some of the directing methods used were Scorsese-Coppola ripoffs, .... However, I thing the movie is far more enjoyable than the 5.8 (current IMDB rating) says.

[–] aasoloway 11 years ago

Where does Pollack rip-off Scorcese or Coppola?

[–] taxvictim 8 years ago

Casablanca, but with the ending from Matt Dillon's The Big Town. "I believe a butterfly flapping its wings in China can cause a hurricane in Mexico... but I wouldn't bet on it."

Something like that.

[–] HarlemEagle42 (16135) a year ago

Sure if Casablanca was made boring.