Presumably intentionally, a host of dance - movie clichés are assembled and trotted out in no particular order to no particular purpose in "Cuban Fury" in which ugly duckling Company Man becomes Beautiful Swan free(-ish) spirit through the love of Salsa. There is a lot of swearing as is the fashion and if that makes you laugh then feel absolutely free to fall about at this because precious little else is even vaguely funny. I may be biased here because the only Frost /Pegg collaboration I have seen apart from this is "Hot Fuzz" which I thought pretty dire. But I like to think I watched "Cuban Fury" with an unprejudiced eye. There are felicitous moments such as when Mr Frost punches his arm through a stud wall in his office and calmly carries on signing papers with his free hand and when the wonderful Miss O.Coleman joins him on the golf range and beats him out of sight,but generally,for a satire to succeed it should be a bit subtle and a lot funnier. The car park "dance off" between Mr Frost and Mr O'Dowd was done better in "Benidorm". Miss Coleman effervesces as Mr Frost's sister and erstwhile dance partner and it is good to see her in a more lighthearted role than of late. For me,Mr I McShane walks away with the picture without apparent effort as the Salsa teacher.Here is a man whose hypnotic persona has often been ill - served on television and only recently as in "Deadwood" has his charisma been unshackled. In "Cuban Fury" his magnificent seediness and faux malevolence is given full rein and he has no difficulty in dominating the film despite having relatively little screen time. For him and Miss Coleman the picture gets a generous six out of ten,rather more than it's true worth in my opinion.
Review of Cuban Fury
