There is an old father, his wife, their three sons who are young men and their gorgeous wives and girlfriends, who are just beginning life. Extended family roles play parts too, for this is not just a nuclear family but a natural one, and realistically Cuban.

Andy Garcia plays the eldest son, who runs the nightclub. He is an upright and dutiful young man, with an keen sense of responsibilty. He brings this character to life and makes you care. His character, Fico, upholds family traditions. In the opening scene, he smacks his younger brother for not showing their father any respect. His biggest worry is how to keep the nightclub from being sucked into Meyer Lansky's mafia network of casinos. He wants the club to be solely for the enjoyment of music and Cuban culture. Some of the best tension in the film comes from his efforts to resist the U.S. mafia mobster, brilliantly played by Dustin Hoffman.

The two younger brothers are a bit different. The youngest is impetuous and rebellious, and he immediately runs off to join castro and his guerrillas in the mountains. It's a something of a weak spot in the film that we don't quite know why he does this - is it lack of opportunity? A too strict father? Latin American Idiot professors filling his head with muck? His crummy little friends? We are not sure. But he does do this, setting the stage for a far more serious conflict than that which Andy's character experiences with Meyer Lansky.

Perhaps even more unexpectedly, the second brother, abandoning his lovely wife, up and joins the guerrillas too. He seemed to be looking for a cause. It's as if castro's revolucion is a monster that seeks to consume all of the family's children. But still, there is a fragment of hope - second brother makes his eldest brother promise to take care of his young wife if anything happens to him. The passage is important because it shows that in the fervor of castro's revolucion, family still means something real even to the most inexplicable fanatic.

Up in the mountains, the young castroites plot their attacks like a gang of thugs, slaying plenty of farmers along the way, and eventually make an assault on the presidential palace, which was then run by the anachronistic and behind the times Fulgencio Batista. It's violent and terrifying. That's a major strength of this film: all of the violence in is extremely frightening - it's not like ordinary Hollywood violence, this violence scares you.

Eventually, the castroites take over, and right away, the ugliness begins. The hard-faced burly female commissars in fatigues, the merciless comrades with pistols, the incredible caprice of the communist hierarchy, the leaden Soviet colonization. We rapidly learn that this brutal crew of soulless castroites is infinitely worse than the more conventional thugs of the Batista regime. They bark crazy orders. They order brother against brother, father against son. They confiscate land and declare anyone who dissents an enemy. They rapidly grow drunk on power. Amid all this, one can see the changes in the youngest brother, who becomes a barbudo, hardened by battle. But in the long run he too is conflicted by the pull of revolucion and his honorable family.

At one point, a very grisly, very realistic che guevara comes into the scene. He is so hateful, so sneering, so repulsive - and so like the t-shirt (they really cast this guy well, he looked JUST LIKE the Argentine mercenary himself!) that he didn't even have to be introduced in the film, because there was no mistaking who he was. He proves to be a ruthless and merciless power player with no soul at all. He kills others on a whim. He feels nothing. This che portrayal alone is worth the price of the admission. It's the first realistic portrait of the Argentine killer ever.

Meanwhile, Andy Garcia, courts a lovely young widow of castro's violence. There are some luminous scenes of Havana in this. Surprisingly, she too is pulled by the forces of castro's revolucion, too, showing that this revolution could take anyone. The rueful conflict grows as the couple seek to keep their connection versus all of the glittering offerings of castro.

castro's revolucion continues to batter the family and eventually, the family is forced to make decisions about unity or taking a risk on the future to preserve hope. The question of exile is explored. It's the most heartbreaking conflict you can imagine. For those who leave, castroites try to rob ever last shred of dignity even in that, something all Cubans going into exile have experienced. Then the immigrant and exile experience is briefly explored, as those who leave strive to keep Cuba in their hearts. Cuba, meanwhile, suffers the horror of castro's takeover and disappears under an wave of tyranny. The family story becomes the Cuban story.

Ironically, that's exactly the opposite of what castro, who wanted all of Cuba as all his own, intended. Cuba's story is this family's story, not castro's story.

It's a great movie of a new kind that has no other peer like it. It's not typical Hollywood drivel but real art. It must be spread by word of mouth given that the Hollywood machines had nothing to do with this and won't like it. But we know different. It's one of the finest movies of the entire year, a real masterpiece.