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As an actor, Andy Garcia has carved out a quiet, unremarkable path: he’s likeable, professional, consistent, but rarely outstanding. He displays similar instincts as a director with his debut feature ‘The Lost City’, which is the tale of three Cuban brothers whose lives take divergent paths when revolution strikes.
Intended as a love letter to the music and people of his ancestral home, Garcia’s film is clearly a labour of love. Unfortunately, it’s also a shameless vanity project: beginning as a compelling if predictable ensemble piece, its narrative focus narrows until it centres entirely around Garcia’s one-dimensional everyman Fico. Bill Murray attempts to inject a little humour into proceedings with his role as an unnamed American writer, but his scenes feel like they’ve strayed in from a different, more interesting movie. ‘The Lost City’ is intriguing as a historical document and adequate as cinema, but it has a blandness at its core that no amount of spicy mambo and booty-quaking dance routines can disguise.