Misadventure

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

Directed by Richard Lester Screenplay by Charles Wood

Havana on the eve of revolution: Batista's people clinging to their corrupt ways; Castro's men closing in on the cap ital; and Sean Connery, as a soldier of fortune, flying in to try to help the govern ment turn the tide. Sounds lively.

But right away, Connery spies his lost love, Brooke Adams. Then and there the picture goes blank. As blank as the lady's face, which Director Lester dwells on obsessively, as if fascinated by an actress who uses the same expression in all her scenes. Eventually, she leaves Connery. Her playboy husband (Chris Sarandon) womanizes blatantly while she runs the cigar factory, but she chooses to remain loyal to him even after his untimely demise -- untimely because the audience would have felt well rid of him long ago.

Focusing on this listless triangle, Lester and Screenwriter Wood present as a dazzling insight into the smugness of power a scene showing Batista absorbed in a Christopher Lee vampire movie as Castro moves in for the kill. The decadence of Batista's supporters appears about as wild as that of the fast crowd in an Ohio country club, while Castro's revolutionaries behave like a hirsute Boy Scout troop. It is hard to believe that this dumb picture is the work of the director who did the delicious Three Musketeers movies.

--Richard Schickel

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.