The Lost City
Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: April 28, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
47
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 23 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
14
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Throbbing with music, seething with anger and romance, The Lost City is a film that breaks your heart, bewilders, alienates and ravishes you by turns. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The movie evokes that long-ago world carefully and with a certain poetry; it was shot in the Dominican Republic. There is a lot of music, much of it from the period and performed by the same musicians or their successors. Read full review
70
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Some of the tropes of The Lost City are ineffective. What does work is the sense of loss. The late Cuban novelist and screenwriter G. Cabrera Infante finds a brilliant device in the love affair between Fico and Aurora (Ines Sastre), his sister-in-law, in that Aurora in some way becomes Cuba. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
What keeps the film watchable, aside from the vibrant musical numbers in the nightclub, is Garcia's obvious love for the Cuba of his ancestors, of his dreams. A lot goes wrong in this overlong movie, but it has a human touch. Read full review
67
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Watching The Lost City is like falling into a delirious dream on a marathon train ride only to be roused every 15 minutes by a conductor punching your ticket or barking out the next stop. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterSheri Linden
A handsome production but one that struggles to integrate its various elements -- cabaret-society glamour, intellectual fervor, family drama, impossible romance and droll humor. Read full review
50
VarietyScott Foundas
A handsomely produced, deeply passionate, but seriously flawed historical epic whose reach far exceeds its grasp. Somewhere inside this overlong, sometimes engaging, often tedious affair, there may be a solid, 100-minute movie. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyTim Grierson
Compelling in fits and starts, actor-director Andy Garcia's The Lost City possesses grand aspirations but troublesome execution. Read full review
50
The New York TimesStephen Holden
In its groggy way The Lost City holds your attention. Incoherent, but splendidly panoramic and drenched in wonderful Cuban music, it has the texture of a vivid, intoxicating dream that seems to mean something until you wake up and feel it slipping away. All that remains are feelings and impressions connected by a mood. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesMark Olsen
In an era when so many films are cynical, cash-grabbing mechanisms of global corporate culture, no more and no less, it is frustrating to come across a work such as this, in which the grasp-exceeding reach and reckless vision of its creators become the biggest drawbacks rather than the film's greatest assets. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Bill Murray plays the secondary role of a nameless American gag writer brimming with one-liners about the absurdity of Cuban life, Dustin Hoffman has a cameo as kvetching gangster Meyer Lansky. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
When an intensely emotional scene calls for the voice to break, call in Andy Garcia. He does the best voice-breaking, half-choked sob of anguish in the business, and he does it a lot in Lost City, his well-meaning directorial debut. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Falls far short of the sweep, complexity and passion it seeks. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Garcia seems to be aping the "Godfather" movies and Warren Beatty's "Reds," but the movie's gracefulness is limited to its handling of the music (some of which Garcia wrote). Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The story may be scattered and sagging and the picture may have little emotional impact -- certainly nothing to justify the epic running time -- but Garcia at least succeeds in making Havana in the 1950s seem like a vibrant, special place. He doesn't exactly make the audience care, but he does make the audience understand why he cares, and that's something. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Though the filmmaker's feel for his Cuban heritage is bone-deep, it's a glazed and dolorous movie - a depressed epic. Read full review
50
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
For all the color and lively music, it's an overlong, messy labor of love built on a sense of personal betrayal that rings hollow. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Even though the movie is made with an abundance of heart, it's sad to report that the final result has only a weak pulse. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Garcia might have thought he was making a Cuban "Casablanca," but his big, empty spectacle amounts to less than a hill of beans. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
The lower orders seem to have been left out of The Lost City -- there just aren't any poor characters -- which for a movie about a workers' revolution seems downright slipshod. Read full review
30
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
Garcia's tale bemoans the loss of easy wealth for a precious few. Poor people are absolutely absent; Garcia and Infante seem to have thought that peasant revolutions happen for no particular reason--or at least no reason the moneyed 1 percent should have to worry about. Read full review
25
New York PostLou Lumenick
Sometimes there's a fine line between a labor of love and a vanity project, and The Lost City, Andy Garcia's heartfelt - but hackneyed and interminable - love letter to his native Cuba, repeatedly crosses it. Read full review
25
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
The Lost City is Andy Garcia's ballad to Havana during the Cuban revolution. You'll have to forgive the penthouse view, though -- it's the only one Garcia can seem to find. Read full review
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