Our Man in Havana

It's a very enjoyable suspenseful comedy. Nothing is quite outstanding, but everything is very good, from the acting to the cinematography to the wonderful plotting.

A typical, solid outing from Carol Reed. It contains all of his hallmarks, yet comes across as a little bloated.

As Greene would say, this is an effective "entertainment." Guinness and Coward are wonderful, Kovacs is interesting, and Burl Ives gives one of his best performances.

Alec Guinness accidentally navigates a vague clusterfuck of espionage in Carol Reed's comedy thriller. The confusion and paranoia are palpable, and the comedic relief is slight but welcome. Guinness never disappoints. I don't love it, but I have a feeling I may like it more with a second viewing.

It's alright. They probably should have made this either more believable, in order to arrive at a good suspense or drama film, or funnier and more poignant if they wanted this to be a good comedy or satire. As is, Our Man in Havana is decent entertainment (with a memorable scene involving an alcoholic checkers game) but not particularly successful at anything.

A very proper afternoon play. Also, whenever there is "suspense", Reed tilts the camera.

A film of unintended consequences with a good helping of understated humour involving a convent girl. The lovable Noel Coward's comic turn plays a few joyous visual jokes on the matter of the Englishman abroad in the tropics.

An enjoyably implausible farce of the cold war era which is at its best when satirising the spy genre, although these moments are not interspersed as generously as in a classic of the era like Dr Strangelove. Guinness performs ably and there is a good supporting cast of O'Hara and Kovacs. The film also manages to give a sense of place to Havana, although how accurate that depiction is may be questionable. A solid comedy with few outstanding weaknesses or strengths.

This promising reteaming of Carol Reed and Graham Greene never quite gells; it's too polite to study corruption and avarice and too po-faced to generate much mirth. With so much exciting stuff going on in world cinema at the time, this comes across like a half-hearted attempt to reheat a big hit that only shows its auteurs past their prime.

82.50

79.000

How to make a good book adaptation? Make the writer of the novel the one who writes the screenplay! A faithful adaptation of a spy classic.

Subversive take on the spy genre, with Guinness as an "everyman" suddenly caught up in a spy network. Typical British humor, leading to a lot of misunderstandings all around. While it's not a masterpiece, it does most things well and is entertaining on a lot of levels.

A spy movie with a comedic twist, similar in tone to Hopscotch or Charade. The third collaboration between Carol Reed and Graham Greene, it certainly doesn't reach the heights of The Third Man but is far more satisfying than The Fallen Idol. While not laugh-out-loud hilarious, it is amusing, and is very well constructed (though perhaps slightly overlong). Alec Guinness is magnificent as always, and has a lot of great supporting talent behind him, especially Burl Ives.

Good film.

I do like what Guinness is up to, and I love Ives in this film. In it's best moments, especially near the end, it's a surprisingly vicious attack on the idea that intelligence agencies have any idea at all about what they're doing.

Advertised as a thriller, is actually a light comedy