Poker In Cinema: Havana
by Bodog Poker | Oct 19 2010
The 1990 Universal release Havana is one of those Robert Redford flicks that slides under the collective radar for whatever reason, which is odd, considering its actorly pedigree: Redford is joined by Raul Julia, Lena Olin and Alan Arkin in the story of a professional gambler who visits Havana, Cuba intending to ply his trade but who ends up running afoul of the secret police. On his way to the titular city, Jack Weil (Redford) meets Bobby Duran (Lena Olin), the wife of Arturo (Raul Julia), a revolutionary sought out by Cuba's government.
Bubby asks for Jack's help in smuggling radios to the communist revolutionaries and Weil, smitten by the attractive woman, agrees to help her even until he discovers her marriage to Arturo. After arriving in Havana, Jack joins his friend (and journalist) Julio Ramos and while carousing, they run into Arturo and Bobby. It's revealed that Arturo is leading the revolution and he desperately needs Jack's help. Again, Redford's character turns him down. The next, morning, however, things change: according to the newspaper, revolutionaries have been rounded up en masse and Arturo was killed.
Jack attends a poker game where he meets the chief of the secret police. The chief informs him that Roberta has been arrested along with the other revolutionaries, and that she is being tortured. Jack gets ahead in the poker game, and uses the debt owed to him by one of the other players (another secret police member) to bargain for Bobby's release. Jack takes Bobby back to his apartment, but she disappears the following afternoon. At this point, Jack has fallen in love with Bobby, and decides to head further into Cuba to find her. He discovers her hiding at Arturo's former estate and reveals to her that he has a diamond sewn into his arm to use as an insurance policy.
When he gets back to his apartment, a pair of Cubans accosts him and informs him that 1) Arturo is alive and 2) he wants Jack to take Bobby to the states. Shocked that Arturo's alive, he initially tries to act as if nothing has changed when around Bobby, even as he tries to confirm the story. Finally, he tracks Arturo down and pretends to be a CIA agent when he meets with the secret police chief, using the diamond to secure the cash to ensure Arturo's release.
Finally, Jack informs Bobby that her husband is still alive. Roberta leaves on her own accord to find him, and Jack loses in a poker game with local high rollers. Alan Arkin, playing the role of the casino manager, understands his loss, knowing that rescuing Roberta is his top priority. Meanwhile, the revolutionaries win the insurrection, forcing the government and secret police to flee the country. The next morning, Bobby discovers that Jack gave up the diamond to ensure her husband's release and the two parts, never to meet again.
Frankly, the poker action in this Sydney Pollack-directed drama is secondary to the plot, but it does capture the play very well, which isn't hard to imagine given Pollack's credentials as a filmmaker. It does offer a peek into a pre-revolutionary Cuba, which was akin to Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic for poker players and other gamblers with games of all types available for a price.
