Supelice
Dreadfully Boring
Yash Wade
Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.
Kirandeep Yoder
The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.
gavin6942
This is the story of the men who tried to kill Fidel Castro, the "world's most famous socialist".Wayne Smith, former US diplomat, says America has felt that Cuba is rightfully ours to command, Castro is a "committed egalitarian" and Cuban refugees ended up in Miami, making Florida a hotbed of anti-Castro sentiment and activism (leading to Florida politicians being anti-Cuba).There is no voting for president in Cuba, so opponents of Castro had little choice but to kill him, because there were no other ways to remove him.There is a very odd scene in 1959, as New York seemed to welcome him and he and his son chatted openly with Edward R. Murrow. By Christmas the same year, the CIA was authorized to kill him.Robert Maheu, former FBI agent, struggled with his conscience as a Roman Catholic, but ultimately figured if he could save one American life, it was worth killing Castro for, and he hires the Mafia to intervene.The directors actually tracked down Howard Hunt, former CIA station chief, and got him to talk, which is amazing, and there's some very casual talk from the son of a would-be assassin, who is not only proud of his father, but has some very stereotypical and potentially racist views of Arabs, too. The film is somewhat damning of the Bush family, both directly and indirectly... especially Jeb and George, Sr.
Lee Eisenberg
Over the years, I've heard about the various ways that the US government has tried to assassinate Fidel Castro. Through interviews with Fabian Escalante (the former head of Cuban intelligence), the makers of "638 Ways to Kill Castro" learned that there had in fact been that many, and they even enumerate how many under each US president.The documentary uses a Michael Moore-style approach: as they explain things, they intersperse footage from other sources to move the action along. While some people may find this distracting, I have always considered it one of the most interesting approaches to film-making. And anyway, we have to focus on the documentary's main point: we're in the midst of a so-called war on terrorism, and yet we try to assassinate a head of state and meanwhile allow known terrorist Orlando Bosch (one of the vilest people on Earth) to live within our borders. Rarely has there been such hypocrisy.I recommend this documentary if only for that. It is important for people to see beyond the Bush administration's lies and hypocrisy, even if the scenes from old movies look a little jarring. Worth seeing.
JustCuriosity
638 Ways to Kill Castro screened at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, TX. It is a fun and entertaining film to watch, but the lightheartedness and focus on the silliest of the plots against Castro often seems to undermine the audience's ability to take the film and the issues they are raising seriously. The choice of editing in footage from old black and white crime noir movies into a documentary to illustrate plots to kill Castro is an odd one that seems to detract from the factual nature of the documentary.The film starts by focusing on the humorous nature of the CIA and Cuban exile plots against Castro and then seems to turn suddenly to the subject of terrorist acts by the anti-Castro groups. The two subjects really seem to be separate, albeit related, ones. The film's style and approach mocks the anti-Castro groups even though their actions and their influence in American politics is very serious. These groups are easy targets, because they are so outlandish and often ridiculous. On the other hand, they give short shrift to genuine reasons that the anti-Castro groups hate the Cuban dictator and what he's done to their country. In so doing the film portrays Castro as a heroic figure and mostly ignores the human rights violations of his regime. Just because the anti-Castro groups are ridiculous, doesn't mean that Castro should be viewed as the savior of Cuba.Late in the film, the documentary focuses on the fundamental contradictions between the U.S. "War on Terror" and its support of anti-Castro "terrorists." This would have made a much more substantive topic for a documentary than the putting so much focus on the many silly plots against Castro. While the documentary provides a good window on an important subject, it could have been a much better and more informative film than it ended up if the film makers were more focused and less interested in mocking the anti-Castro groups and U.S. policy.
bob the moo
After a bit of calculation and counting, 638 is the number of plots and conspiracies against Fidel Castro arrived at by his former head of state security Fabian Escalante. This documentary looks back at the history of this continual attempts by the US Government to kill Castro via various proxies. Whether it be the infamous Bay of Pigs incident or the plans to undermine him by making his beard fall out, we get interviews from those involved from both Cuba and the US.A rather mixed bag this documentary. On one hand it feels all a bit cheeky and light hearted, using film stock from unrelated films (Angels with Dirty Faces) to illustrate what the narrator is saying. But on the other hand it is a film that includes footage of executions and does, at the end of the day, deal with a dictator who killed dissidents within his own country and has been a target of the US for decades. Some others have praised this light hearted approach but personally I found it distracting. Yes at times the plots are daft (powder to make his beard fall out, exploding cigars, LSD in a TV studio to make him freak out etc) but mostly this serious stuff. That said though, the film is still interesting regardless of this mixed approach and has done really well to get access to lots of significant players within this story. Infamous terrorist Orlando Bosch (granted residency in the US by Bush Sr even though 30+ countries refused to accept him) and it is chilling to watch him confess to a plane bombing that killed all the passengers but also more! The standard of the rest of the contributors is similarly high, including former US diplomats, former friend Enrique Ovares (who committed suicide just weeks after this film was made) and others. The narration is a bit flat but the biggest problem is the direction from Cannell. With so many great contributors talking so honestly about state-sanctioned terrorism, the death of innocents and so on, why was it felt necessary to overuse stock footage of a house exploding, or clips from old spy b-movies? I have no idea but it did seem that the film was interesting in spite of the delivery rather than because of it.Damning and fascinating stuff then. Really well researched and with great access to key people, many of whom are astonishingly frank. The comic tone to it and use lots of inappropriate stock footage were big mistakes though and undermine the importance and quality of the film. A very mixed bag then, but the good outweighs the bad but it is very much worth seeing.
