CG Cinéma
France 2 Cinéma
Memento Production
Nostromo Pictures
Orange Studio
Not part of a collection.
Wasp Network
Traitors or heroes?
Havana, Cuba, 1990. René González, an airplane pilot, unexpectedly flees the country, leaving behind his wife Olga and his daughter Irma, and begins a new life in Miami, where he becomes a member of an anti-Castro organization.
- Original title
- Wasp Network
- Language
- EN
- Country
- FR
- Budget
- $10,530,000
- Revenue
- $1,400,000
tmdb28039023
Aug 25, 2022 · via TMDB
Wasp Network (2019) is "based on a true story", but its makers may be looking at reality through 'beer goggles.' For example, there is a character played by Ana de Armas, who regardless of her talent – or lack thereof – reminds me of a young Tiffani Amber Thiessen. During the epilogue, however, we are shown a photo of the corresponding real person, and what we see is a thick, plump, buxom, etc., etc. woman, and there is nothing wrong with it just like there is nothing wrong with de Armas being slender; the problem lies in that the truth is manipulated to make it more attractive to the public. If director Olivier Assayas takes such liberty with a supporting character, how do we know what's real and what's a complete fabrication? In keeping with this pattern, the locations are authentic, but even if the events of the film were equally genuine, Assayas manages to needlessly complicate them. In principle, I have nothing against non-linear stories told non-sequentially, but this script would already be hard to follow, with its espionage and counter-espionage, moles, agents and double-agents, and above all its moral ambiguity and political contradictions. This material calls for simplification, not convolution. I mean, if your movie is a quote-unquote true story, wouldn't you want to push the truth all the way to the foreground? What's the use of knowing what really "happened" if we don't understand how and why it happened? Having said that, Wagner Moura is perfect for Wasp Network for the same reasons that made him a wrong choice for the title role in Sergio. In both movies he is snooty, arrogant, and shallow; unbecoming characteristics for a noble United Nations diplomat, but which fit his opportunistic character like a glove here – a character who also happens to have the best lines in the movie ([devouring a Big Mac] “after years of eating McCastro's, McDonald's is a delicacy;” or, when a Cuban journalist asks him, while his wife watches the interview from Miami, what he misses most about his life on American soil: [thinks for a moment] "My Jeep Cherokee”).
CinemaSerf
Mar 27, 2022 · via TMDB
Given the intriguing story and really good cast behind this, it ought to have been good. It isn't. It meanders all over the place with way too many plots, sub plots and storylines all ambling about devoid of a solid narrative. It could be a six-parter if it wanted to be, but as a single film it just doesn't really gel at all. Olivier Assayas clearly has some skin in the game as he sets out to interweave the political and personal stories of 5 Cubans who end up, by various means, in Florida in the 1990s. Tourist pilot Edgar Ramirez ("Rene") is one of then, who leaves home and stunningly gorgeous wife Penelope Cruz ("Olga") one day, pinches a plane and defects to the US where, together with "Juan Pablo" (Wagner Moura) he is soon part of a network that effectively tries to assist Cuban defectors to get to the USA. Their determination to destabilise the Castro administration starts to lead them into more complex, moral choices whilst we continue to see his wife struggling with day to day life back home with their daughter. That's just the first half hour... There are plenty more characters, and storylines; CIA involvement; the infamous hotel bombs of 1997 - all told in a rigidly episodic fashion. It is trying to cram way too much into two hours and as such the characterisations suffer. It's not that you don't like or sympathise with them, it's that you don't ever feel you really know or understand them - Gael García Bernal as the equivalent of "Control" somehow lacks any menace or sophistication too. There is some beautiful photography of the island of Cuba itself, and of the Canary Islands, and it looks great, the cast look great, but it needed much more focus and much tighter plot filtration.
User reviews courtesy of TMDB.
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Penélope Cruz
Olga
Edgar Ramírez
René
Gael García Bernal
Viramontez
Ana de Armas
Ana Margarita
Wagner Moura
Roque
Leonardo Sbaraglia
Basulto
Tony Plana
Luis Posada Carriles
Julian Flynn
PUND's Pilot
Julio Gabay
Roque's Cousin
Harlys Becerra
CANF Activist #1
Juan Ángel Samper
Castro's Envoy
Stephen William Tenner
Bill Clinton's Advisor #2
Carlos Leal
Narrator (voice)
Noslen Sánchez
Fernando González
Daniel Romero Pildaín
Pilot Cessna #2
Ruairi Rhodes
Guantánamo Base US Officer #2
Brannon Cross
US Coast Guard
Steve Howard
US Airbase Controller
Patricia González Ciuffardi
Roque's Interviewer
Bill Clinton
Self (archive footage)
Fidel Castro
Self (archive footage)
François-Renaud Labarthe
Production Design
Yorick Le Saux
Director of Photography
Thi Thanh Tu Nguyen
Makeup Artist
Olivier Assayas
Director
Luc Bricault
First Assistant Director
Matthew Gledhill
First Assistant Director
Simon Jacquet
Editor
Anna González
Casting Director
Antoinette Boulat
Casting Director
Valerie Daniella Hernández Oloffson
Casting Director
Geneviève Lemal
Co-Producer
Adrián Guerra
Executive Producer
Celina Torrealba
Executive Producer
Sophie Mas
Executive Producer
Charles Gillibert
Producer
Rodrigo Teixeira
Producer
Olivier Assayas
Screenplay
O Camaleão
Hurricane F.Y.T.
Bloody Dusk
Healer
The Godfather Part II
Scarface
Casablanca
The Lives of Others
North by Northwest
The Sting
Rapunzel, The Dog and The Warlock
Skipper Straad
The Phoney War
In the Name of the Father
Die Hard
Notorious
Twelve Monkeys
Main Street Eagle
Sword of the Stranger
Lenin and the Other Story of the Russian Revolution
The Bourne Identity
Hostage
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Boys Don't Cry
Joyeux Noel
Sicko
The Bourne Supremacy
When Acacias Bloom
Monster
Trap of Suicide Kilometer
8 Mile
From Russia with Love
Max Manus: Man of War
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
Summer 1993
Ehun metro
Preludio 11
Amistad
Lemon Tree
The Road to Guantanamo
Bad Boy Bubby
Déjà Vu
No Way Out
Slacker
Katyn
Bugatti: A Thirst for Speed
Jarhead
From Hell
U.S. Marshals
Live and Let Die
Appleseed: Ex Machina
The Basque Ball: Skin Against Stone
2 Fast 2 Furious
Get Shorty
Vantage Point
Executive Decision
Delantero
Master Spy
Get Smart
Dostana
Secret Agent
Labyrinth of Passion
Passenger 57
Five Fingers
Miami Vice
Topaz
I Escaped from the Gestapo
The Accidental Spy
Lowlands
Sudden Death
The Tailor of Panama
The Fast and the Fierce
Fairyland
Sardinia Kidnapped
Æon Flux
Airport '77
H
Race d'Ep!
Mercenary for Justice
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
Castle Sinister
Billion Dollar Spy
Parts of Disease
The Detective and The Desperado
Transnational Plunder
Bai Shan Hei Shui
Ilu Ilu 1998
The Linguist
Operation Cronos
Bound by Honor
Donnie Brasco
The Godfather Part III
Juice
Cop Land
All Eyez on Me
Che: Part Two
The Grissom Gang
Alpha Dog
Colombiana
Conspiracy Theory
Kill the Messenger
The East
The Informer
Vantage Point
A Walk Among the Tombstones
Live by Night
Backstabbing for Beginners
The Public Eye
Sharky's Machine
Out for Justice
Sniper
Blood Ties
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
The Corruptor
Rose Plays Julie
Night of the Sicario
Oct 5, 2019
New York Film Festival
Jun 19, 2020
Netflix
