A Brilliant Conflict

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

As others have said, this is Coleman Francis' (inspired by a bad acid trip?) attempt to do "Treasure of the Sierra Madre," which itself has its roots in Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale: ruthless criminals end up double-crossing each other and nobody really wins. Unfortunately, that sort of thing works only if you care about the characters or at least are curious to see what will happen next. I can't tell one character from the next, except that (as everyone else has pointed out) the main guy looks like the guy from the Three Stooges. As for what happens next, I can't tell what ALREADY happened, and I'm still watching it, courtesy of MST3K. I think they threw in the Cuba stuff just because it seemed timely in the '60s. Other than that, this movie seems like a bunch of random chase scenes and shoot-em-ups from other movies tossed together. The Stooges guy choking the one who keeps talking about his long line of Kallikak ancestors is Charles Boyer freaking out at a blind beggar in "Algiers," the MST3K crew picked up on the hiding- from-the-cops scenes cribbed from "The Defiant Ones," the chick associating with the men who abandoned her wounded husband is out of GOK how many films noirs. If you want to see a movie where random amorality actually works, watch 1972's "Bad Company." I've clicked the Spoiler option, but I'm not sure there's anything to spoil. NOBODY knows what's going on in this film.

Night Train to Mundo Fine (aka Red Zone Cuba) is about the most pointless, incredibly ridiculous movies ever made. The story follows an escaped convict named Griffen (Coleman Francis) who befriends a couple of drifters looking for work, and they decide to join the Bay of Pigs invasion force. After about 20 minutes of military training, all 8 men of the invasion force invade Cuba. They're all captured and awaiting execution, when the three friends escape and fly a plane to Arizona to look for precious metals in a mountain one of the men in the invasion force told them about in their cell. They drive around, kill a couple people, jump on a train, meet the wife of the guy who owns the mountain, and as they're heading out to do some mining G-men show up to capture them.There really does seem to be no point to this movie whatsoever. There are so many plot lines which go nowhere, and no real reason to involve the Bay of Pigs as part of the plot, other than to learn about the Arizona mountain and its riches. There's no reason for them to kill people after they go to Arizona. There's no reason for them to ditch their car and hop onto a train, only to get another car later on. There's no need for Griffen to shoot the woman after the feds are chasing him.This could have been a decent movie if it had decent directing and a budget for the action sequences. As it was, about all the action was cut out of the movie. There was little action in the invasion sequence, certainly no combat to speak of. Then when they were escaping Cuba in the airplane, one minute they're taxiing down the runway with a jeep chasing them and people shooting, next thing they're walking in a field. Same for the train sequence. One minute they're walking on top of a moving train, the next they're jumping out of a stationary boxcar. In fact, the whole train scene was no more than 1:20 or so minutes long. It's like Coleman Francis thought it'd be a great idea to take out all the best parts of the movie and leave in everything else.And in the end, there's really not much of a message to this movie, or if there's supposed to be it's difficult to determine what it is. You really can't feel empathy for the lead character because he's just not much of a likable guy. Nor do you really care about the others. Nor is the movie good entertainment, even in a "so bad it's good" sort of way.If you watch this, watch the MST3K version.

"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.

Auteur extraordinaire Coleman Francis once again proves that staying away from studio interference and a budget as well as casting one's incompetent self is the only surefire way to create a surrealist, absurdist, and yet somehow ultra-realistic cinema-verite masterpiece of the magnitude of "Red Zone Cuba", also known as "Night Train to Mundo Fine".Coleman Francis uses multiple inventive and original techniques to establish the absurdist atmosphere of this uncompromising noir epic. His use of repetitive imagery evokes the unnecessary nature of the lives being lived by the protagonists as well as the antagonists in Francis' typical ultra-realist and yet abstract sensationalist cinema verite noir universe. John Carradine in particular was an inspired bit of casting- a fine actor whose career was deteriorating- the perfect way to portray a character in the dark, gloomy, relentless world of continuous close-ups that Francis creates.Of course it's fairly obvious that "Red Zone Cuba" was Stanley Kubrick's primary influence for "2001: A Space Odyssey", but the similarity between both films goes even farther. Indeed, "Red Zone Cuba" creates an aesthetic far removed and yet nearly identical to "2001". Kubrick has stated that Coleman Francis succeeded so unbelievably well in "Red Zone Cuba" that no director in the future of cinema should attempt to equal it, resulting in Kubrick's deliberate attempt to create an inferior film. Needless to say, the poorly-paced "2001" succeeds in this aspect.Although released late in Francis' career "Red Zone Cuba" was actually shot in 1961. It is said that critics who viewed the film in 1961 walked out in droves appalled and yet fascinated with Francis' portrayal of Fidel Castro as an American man named Landis in a deliberately fake beard. This absurdist view of Cuban-American relations caused controversy that delayed the film's release by five years.Francis includes many of his trademark stylistic choices in this film as both a writer and director. For example, coffee is the focus of more than one scene, and we all know how brilliantly coffee is used in Francis' films as a motif. Another important aspect of this film is the use of repetitive imagery to enhance the gritty realist absurdism that is Coleman Francis' cinema. The scene where several men climb up a cliff using a rope is remarkable and possibly the greatest sequence in all of cinema.Of course the final line is the greatest of all time: "Griffin ran all the way to hell... with a penny, and a broken cigarette."Narration that is clearly an influence on Terrence Malick and other reputable directors.10/10