Director Richard Lester seems to be trying for a Caribbean Casablanca here and things begin quite promisingly in the desperate hustle and bustle of Cuba in 1959, as Castro's revolution nears. But they crumble to ashes in the central relationship between Sean Connery and Brooke Adams, at first seeming to apologise for the film's stilted clichés - 'As they say,' mutters Connery - but soon trotting out such dialogue as 'I didn't know so much passion existed in one so young' with barefaced effrontery. There may still be the definitive movie to come in the future about Cuba and Castro; meanwhile few will care about the outcome of this one, which has Connery as a British mercenary sent to Cuba to train the Batistas, who are under attack from Castro's revolutionary forces. To their credit, Lester and screenwriter Charles Wood have given the story a strong satirical streak, observing that although governments change, nothing else does.

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