Book-ended by fine songs; in between, Garcia offers more than two hours of clumsy Coppola/Scorsese karaoke...
The Lost City (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:82
Fresh:21
Rotten:61
Average Rating:4.7/10
Consensus: Its heart is in the right place, but what starts as a promising exercise devolves into an overlong, unevenly directed disappointment.
Theatrical Release:05-12-2008
Synopsis: The Lost City is actor/director Andy Garcia’s bittersweet lyric celebration of Cuban culture that took him 16 years to make. Using music, literature and dance, City captures Havana in full... The Lost City is actor/director Andy Garcia’s bittersweet lyric celebration of Cuban culture that took him 16 years to make. Using music, literature and dance, City captures Havana in full tropical bloom during the late 1950s. Where Buena Vista Social Club commemorated an era of Cuban music before it slipped away, City captures the moment where performers like Beny More electrified audiences with that rhythm, a rhythm that made Havana the Pearl of the Antilles. Scripted by Cuban writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante, whom critic David Thomson likened to Jorge-Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marques, City builds like a vivid tropical fever-dream; a love story and revolution set to music. Centered in El Tropico, a nightclub roughly modeled after Havana’s famous Tropicana, proprietor Fico Fellove tries to hold his family and club together as the dictator Batista’s reign of terror comes crashing down around him. Ultimately, to survive, Fico must leave everything he loves. City is every immigrant’s story—a paean to lost culture. It’s a time and place in history that still lives vividly in the imagination of the exile. And as conjured by Infante and Garcia, this is a land where rhythm can’t be exiled. You can leave the country, but the rhythm will never leave you. Along with its original score, City sings with 40 different songs. Mambos, chachachas, rumbas, toques, danzones, boleros. Together they create an oral history of Cuba. They are love songs to an indomitable culture—a culture that reveals itself in music, but also in dance, in poetry, in Catholicism, in African and European heritages, in Revolution, in tobacco, in Santeria and the azure sky and water that surround the island. These are the residents of The Lost City. -- © Lions Gate Films [More]
Starring: Andy Garcia, Dustin Hoffman, Bill Murray, Inés Sastre
Starring: Andy Garcia, Dustin Hoffman, Bill Murray, Inés Sastre, Jsu Garcia
Director: Andy Garcia
Director: Andy Garcia
Screenwriter: G. Cabrera Infante
Producer: Frank Mancuso
Studio: Lions Gate Films
Reviews for The Lost City
Even though the movie is made with an abundance of heart, it's sad to report that the final result has only a weak pulse.
It's handsome and heartfelt but mired in murky politics, plot inertia, musical montages and painfully pointed symbolism.
Garcia needed better guiding hands and eyes in the editing room to jettison the many parts that bog down the story.
... when it finds its footing, it becomes the movie it longs to be. And that happens often enough to make it worth finding, even when it seems as lost as the city it loves.
Somehow simultaneously too much and not enough. At 143 minutes, it well overstays its welcome as a movie, but with a little more fleshing out it might have worked as a miniseries.
It's a potent work, enlivened by fabulous Cuban music and Garcia's obvious love for his land and his culture.
Unfortunately, Garcia is inept as a director. His scenes are shapeless and bloated with self-important speeches.
Unfortunately, the broad scope leads to a tedious pace, as Garcia lacks the restraint to match his keen visual eye.
It's barely coherent as it is, but at 2 hours and 23 minutes, The Lost City is simply infuriating.
Too scattered, too confused, too patched-together to work dramatically.
The movie has too many stories to tell and tells none of them very well.
Our cue that Garcia is acting is when he furiously bats his eyes in his smoldering emotional scenes. Either that, or he's allergic to the smoke from all those Cuban cigars.
For a film rooted in the director's own experience, The Lost City is surprisingly unilluminating.
Garcia's fans and viewers who love Cuban music will probably enjoy The Lost City if they don't mind the long run time.
Listening to the soundtrack would likely provide a better artistic experience than watching this predictable plot play out.
If you want to see a good, entertaining movie about Havana, circa 1958, better to rent Havana, than waste your money on this turkey.
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