Red Zone Cuba (1966)

good back-story, and good acting

For having a relatively low budget, the film's style and overall art direction are immensely impressive.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

"Night Train to Mundo Fine", aka "Red Zone Cuba", is one of the numerous movies only known today thanks to "Mystery Science Theater 3000". The incoherent plot has some criminals who participate in the Bay of Pigs invasion. That's supposedly the plot, but only a few minutes of the movie take place in Cuba, after which the characters go on a crime spree in the southwest US. Yeah, try and figure that one out. The person playing Fidel Castro looks as much like him as celery looks like lava. Basically, the movie itself could be a metaphor for how well planned - not to mention how successful - the actual invasion was. As Crow puts it, "I want to hurt this movie but I can never hurt it the way it hurt me." So, if in fact you want to see it, just watch the "MST3K" version, as well as the show's version of that other Coleman Francis fiasco "The Skydivers". How cruel of Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank to make Mike, Servo and Crow watch this.

"Red Zone Cuba" is a movie that peaks early, with a brief cameo by the always fantastic John Carradine. Once the king of B-movie legends is done reading cue cards while looking 200 years old, it just turns into the usual Coleman Francis dreck. No plot whatsoever: check. Shot on film that looks like it wants to kill itself: check. A cast consisting of the ugliest people on the planet: check. But unlike "Beast Of Yucca Flats" or "The Skydivers", "Red Zone Cuba" does become so bad it's good here and there. Don't get me wrong, it's a boring movie, but occasionally it gets so bizarre you just have to laugh. The part where they try to take over Cuba is hilarious, the army consists of ten people tops. I also love the part with the woman "who's been blind since her husband was killed in the war". If anyone can figure out how that would work, I'll be glad to hear it. The best part however is that Coleman Francis, apparently blinded by his massive success (or possibly since his husband was killed in the war), gave himself the lead this time! Glorious bad acting ensues. If you're ever in a situation where you're forced to watch one Coleman Francis movie (it could happen), better make it this one.

I saw the MST3K version of Night Train to Mundo Fine, aka. Red Zone Cuba, and the jokes weren't that funny, leaving me to focus on the movie. This movie is bleak, insanely boring and very, very confusing, despite its seemingly simple plot. I went to Wikipedia while watching this movie to understand what was going on. (The Wikipedia entry didn't help much either.) The dialogue is revolting and the movie is plagued with constant close-ups on the "actors", along with a stupid but confusing plot and characters and scenes that seem to blend together. Not even worth seeing the half-decent MST3K version. What angers me is that in the plot description, it says: "Gritty neo-noir art film about escaped convict Griffin and his friends, who ran all the way to hell... with a penny, and a broken cigarette." Art film? Seriously?

Curse you, Ray Dennis Stecker! If you(also a terrible filmmaker in your own right)had'nt found Coleman Francis drunk in a gutter and encouraged him to make films, we wouldn't have been inflicted with his three opuses, namely Skydivers, The Beast of Yucca Flats, and the epitome of dreadful, Red Zone Cuba. This 'movie' stuns you with its sheer awfulness. It is a senseless, horrible piece of crap. The main character, played with greasy flabbiness by the auteur Mr. Francis himself, is perhaps THE most unlikable character I have ever seen, and that includes the guy from Manos and Francis's mentor Ray Dennis who played an amazingly unlikable character in his Mixed Up Zombies movie. This jerk is first seen escaping from prison, and for most of the rest of the movie all he does is smoke, threaten people, grouse, and of course pointlessly beat up and kill people. I've always been amazed by 'filmmakers' you cast themselves as characters in their own movies, and then proceed to make the character someone so nasty and horrible that the audiences first reaction is to want to bitch slap them. Is that how you want to be remembered, Mr. Francis? As that horrid guy in Red Zone Cuba who sunk the human race to new lows? Well, okay, then.The plot - okay, there is no plot. None. Nada. Zip. There's supposed to be an 'invasion' of Cuba, but there's maybe eight guys on the invasion team, because apparently Cuba(which looks like New Mexico for some reason) only has eight Cubans living on it. And one of them wears a terrible false beard for some reason. Then there's an incomprehensible escape, wherein the characters fly out of New Mexico...err....Cuba, and land in - where else? New Mexico. Then there's a weird bit about a really annoying blind singer and her very tall, very thin, very old Dad who gets stuffed down a well. After that, there's a ton of strung together travel scenes, and the idiots arrive at their destination, a ranch with a really depressed woman living on it. Then some High School age G-Men show up, Francis shoots the woman for no discernible reason, and he gets chased down and shot. The ONLY good scene in the whole movie, if you ask me. And that's it. Arrggghhh!!!