Just last week this column trotted out the movie industry's defense — post-Colorado "Batman" shootings — that films don't influence actual behavior. Now along comes "7 Días en La Habana (7 Days in Havana)," a raucous compendium film that features scene after simmering scene of people getting righteously hammered on shots of the local firewater, good old Cuban rum. Did I mention that one of the film's main backers was Havana Club International?
So why was it I felt like hopping on a plane and heading over to La Habana for some of that tasty late-night action, where every bar boasts impeccably faded 1950s retro ambience, and the ripe chicas are shimmying sultrily as round after round of rum shots flow over the bar?
In that sense, "7 Days in Havana" is an effective commercial for the Caribbean nation's charms — and one that's probably needed, considering the continuing United States-led effort to boycott the nation into submission for, well, not being the kind of communist nation that lets American capitalists exploit its labor force ruthlessly, like China. Whether or not it works as a film is another question.