Cuban Fury (2014)

So much average

Best movie ever!

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Cuban Fury is a decent movie with a mediocre storyline and a great comedic cast that sadly couldn't make this much better. The main problem with the movie is it simply isn't funny enough, there were some parts that had me in stitches, but there wasn't merely enough to make it worth your while. The cast is terrific, Nick Frost, Rashida Jones, Chris O' Dowd and Olvia Colman are all terrific actors, but they were all given boring roles that didn't allow them show off the talent they have. Rashida Jones is easily one of the funniest women in show business, so I can't understand why she did this movie, she had a boring 2D character who was just there to motivate Frost to become a new man, and I think that he should have ended up with Colman's character in the end, they seemed perfect for each other. It had a lot of potential and essentially let me down, I think you would be better off avoiding Cuban Fury. An overweight, down on his luck man tries to impress his new boss by learning salsa dancing and hopefully winning her heart.Best Performance: Chris O'Dowd Worst Performance: Rashida Jones

Cuban Fury has it's moments. It's relatable characters and light-hearted theme will definitely appeal to those who are not crazy about films. However, this film makes absolutely no effort in trying to be anything but slightly enjoyable. On a directorial level it is bland and lifeless with no personality or flare. The pivotal dance sequences are poorly shot and they are not even that well choreographed. The relationships are forced and boring. And the plot has too much back and forth to be the type of film you can invest yourself in. This could have been a family friendly flick, but the gratuitous language and abysmal sex jokes completely kill the little purpose this films had. Speaking of purpose, they only reason there are well known actors in this movie is solely for marketing purposes. Admit it; you only watched it to see Nick Frost dance. This is a pointless movie made only to make money and to waste your time. Avoid it.

Despite an unconventional premise, two charming leads, and a focus on a subject scarcely depicted in film, there is shockingly little to say about James Griffiths' Cuban Fury other than there is little funny about the story and its characters and there is not too much that is interesting either. What could be a satire, both mocking and embracing Spanish culture, particularly the dance known as the Salsa, the film seems to have too much love for the dance to dare say anything remotely satirical about it, and the descent into sappy, heartfelt storytelling in the third act happens way too fast and disrupts the film's tone, which was already barely scraping by as a piece of afternoon fluff.The film stars Nick Frost, most famous from Edgar Wright's "Cornetto" trilogy, which also featured the comedic talents of Simon Pegg, who makes a brief but memorable cameo in Cuban Fury. Frost plays Bruce Garrett, a once-teen salsa champion who now wastes away, an unfulfilled louse who was cruelly beaten by a gaggle of bullies for exercising his passion for dance. His passion, however, is reinvigorated once he meets his attractive new boss Julia (Rashida Jones), who loves dancing, particularly the salsa, and in order to win her over, Bruce must work to master all of his traits that he thought he lost. The only thing standing in his way is his sly, manipulative coworker Drew (Chris O'Dowd of The IT Crowd and The Sapphires fame), who is also trying to win over Julia through techniques involving insincerity and cunning actions.Right off the bat, we have three talents at the center of this film who have proved to do strong work in the past few years; what we don't have, however, is a script that is interesting enough to maintain a story about salsa for over ninety minutes and what we don't have is a script that is funny enough to keep its main subject afloat. Salsa is one of those subjects that is almost asking to be satirized with an unconventional sense of humor, but the fact that writer Jon Brown seems to respect it too much to really make fun of it means the only other route Cuban Fury can take besides the route of satire is the route of seriousness, which, for something like this, isn't all that interesting.And with that, Cuban Fury dissolves into a story that becomes about centered on the one man trying to one-up the other, and eventually into sappiness by the film's conclusion, which already throws off the kind of energy and force Frost and O'Dowd are known to generate on-site. Neither man is bad here, and neither is Jones, who, despite really lacking a core character outside of being a love interest, still gets by because her character is so sweet and loving. The real issue lies that Frost and O'Dowd aren't given much to do together that is memorable in a comedic sense; they kind of wade in the water, hoping their talents will be effectively used in the film but that moment never comes and we're left with a shell of a film.Cuban Fury, similar to another project Frost did, alongside Simon Pegg, seems to need the directorial and writing care provided by Edgar Wright, who has collaborated with Frost and Pegg, as I said, three times before. I've never quite seen the case where an actor deviating from a director/writer's project causes him to make lesser films, but it has been prevalent in the case of Pegg and Frost, who are funny men, when given the right lines, but seemingly need the guidance of a man who can blend humor with absurdity and drama. Wright did it with Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World's End, and it seems Griffiths and Brown could've benefited from his techniques.Starring: Nick Frost, Chris O'Dowd, and Rashida Jones. Directed by: James Griffiths.

Review: I quite enjoyed this heartwarming tale about a salsa dancer who stops dancing because he gets bullies when he was young. He then falls for a new employee at his workplace who also enjoys Salsa dancing so he picks up the art again to try and get close to his love. Some of the scenes were funny, especially with Chris O'Dowd & Kayvan Novak who plays the gay dancer, and I loved the music throughout the movie. It's enjoyable if you don't take it seriously, but some of the scenes are a bit ridiculous, like the standoff in the car park. I was impressed with Nick Frost dancing, especially because of his size, and Nicks sister, Olivia Coleman, was also pretty impressive. Anyway, it's full of fun for the whole family and I'm sure that you will be tapping for feet throughout the film.Round-Up: It's a shame that the movie didn't make that much money because the whole cast put in 100% and they all looked like professional dancers. We are all familiar with a Nick Frost's type of humour from the Shaun of the a Dead franchise and Paul so you kind of know what type of comedy to expect. Personally, it's not a movie that I would watch over and over again, but it's a simple storyline which has some great dance moves.Budget: N/A Worldwide Gross: $100,000 (Terrible!)I recommend this movie to people who are into there movies about a salsa dancer who tries to charm the love of his life through dance. 5/10