Mambo Man: Scuffling in Cuba

Most films you should want to watch closely, because that is the whole point of the medium. However, sometimes there are films you can enjoy listening to, but you might prefer to give only cursory attention to the events on the screen. This is definitely a “listening movie,” thanks to the wonderful Afro-Cuban soundtrack. The story that goes with it is pretty thin, but you can’t have everything, especially in Cuba. An impresario-farmer-get-rich-quick-schemer probably should just stick to music in Mo Fini & Edesio Alejandro’s Mambo Man, which releases virtually today.

JC (not a very Communist name, is it?) is the beloved godfather of the East Cuban music scene, even though we never see him pick up an instrument. Regardless, he is just wrapping up an album with music producer Mo Fini, playing himself. Thanks to unseasonable weather, he is sweating out his crops, but he still finds time to host shows for European music tourists on his farm. Then one fateful day, his childhood friend Roberto returns from Ecuador, offering JC a golden opportunity. The matriarch of a family he knows needs to sell a fabulous collection of jewelry to pay for her transit to Miami, the promised land—at the low, low price of $50K.

Sadly, because Cuba is a closed, oppressive pariah state, JC has never seen George C. Scott in The Flim-Flam Man or any other scam artist movie that would have warned him any deal too good to be true is precisely that. We can see it coming from way down the Malecon, but screenwriters Fini and Paul Morris stretch out their simplistic cautionary morality tale until the seams practically snap.