Wasp Network (2019) User Reviews

An interesting period of Cuban history

[Vindelander · 7/10 · 22 August 2020]

Way better than it's current rating of 5.8 would indicate imo. With a great cast ( how can you go wrong with Penny Cruz, Ana de Armis and Wagner Moura ?!) and interesting storyline it's a cross between Narcos and Syriana with better landscape.

Really watchable even though it hops around a bit in timelines and highlights the duplicity of both the Castro and US governments.

A neat spy thriller that is very engaging !!

[madhukar30 · 7/10 · 7 February 2021]

I live very far away from the American hemisphere, I dunno much about the politics involved with the Wasp Network and my knowledge on the historical accuracy of the incident shown is virtually zero. As a movie fan of military and espionage trillers, I found Wasp Network very neat, engaging and in fact thrilling at places. In fact knowing nothing about the incident prior actually worked in my favour, in terms of enjoying this spy flick.

Cinematography was good overall, especially the Ariel photography involving multiple aircraft. Screenplay was very good too, though it had lot of choppy cuts in the middle affecting the smoothness of the story's flow. Direction, music and makeup were all par. Considering the budget of Wasp Network, Production design and costumes were excellent. Though the movie boasted some big names among the cast like Wagner Moura and Penolope Cruz, acting in general was good, with nothing exceptional.

Overall, sans any knowledge about the incident involved in the movie, I enjoyed the movie. It was very engaging throughout and in fact gripping at some places. I would definitely recommend this movie to action movie fans around the world, for a wonderful Sunday afternoon watch. Wasp Network is definitely one of the better Netflix Original movies, in a series of recent duds. 6.9 stars out of 10 for Wasp Network's ability to spring surprises.

Potential but rather messy

[impeyrules-54634 · 5/10 · 8 January 2020]

Without getting onto the political correctness of the film, it was fairly entertaining but lacked direction. The narrative was confusing at times and certain stories seemed to be forgotten or abandoned half way through

An interesting film.

[birgitleimbach · 7/10 · 21 June 2020]

After reading a lot of reviews I didn't expect this film would offer much. It was a bit confusing and disjointed but I enjoyed exploring the context of the film and really enjoyed the story of Rene and his family.

History alive and beautiful even if unweildly.

[JohnDeSando · 24 June 2020]

Because much of my joy in reliving history is through cinema, I eagerly went to Netflix to experience writer/director Olivier Assayas's Wasp Network (with writer Fernando Morais as well). Having never thought about the spies in the 90's who infiltrated the anti-Castro movement in Florida, I now have a vivid picture of them and their heroic, self-sacrificing for communist Cuba.

This sometimes-incoherent docudrama (just too many spies dancing in the espionage world with nary a pause to figure if they're working for the rebels, the Cuban government, or the FBI). Olga Salaneuva (Penelope Cruz), wife of ace pilot for the Cuban government, Rene Gonzalez (Edgar Ramirez), who secretly infiltrates the rebels without her knowing, provides a dramatic glue as she interacts also with other recruits for the government through her husband.

Gerardo Hernandez (Gael Garcia Bernal) is responsible for supervising the spies in Florida into the Wasp Network. Already you can see my challenge making coherent an unwieldy assembly of heroes and scalawags-I have yet to adequately assess the worth of the film.

I'm going to do that now while I have much else of the plot left undone: The excellent cast and the stellar DP's (Yorick Le Saux and Denis Lenoir) have reminded us what a romantic and troubled island Cuba has been since Fidel Castro began his long rule. With cooperation from Cuba, the colorful decadence and charming decay of that festive nation are on display. Old American cars and shabby multicolored buildings create the perfect metaphor for the revolution with its romantic aspirations and real-time rationing of food and gas, enough to make emigration to the US a realistic goal.

Assayas has too much to cover, but what he does, when you factor out the excessive time given to domestic challenges and even a wedding, is fascinating to see how much these spies have given up for Cuba. The history is well known-The spies are caught and mostly turn on each other to accept the FBI's plea deals.

Communists still rule Cuba, and it suffers from the sanctions the Us has firmly held since Castro. In spite of that relatively poor profile, people are willing to sacrifice for Cuban ideals by joining the Wasp Network-and it stings. The movie, however, is historically and visually balm for the history-loving cinephile.

I need more.

[dilbararys-19150 · 7/10 · 21 June 2020]

This film should have been a 10-episode series instead. There is so much narrative to explore, at times it felt like they tried to cram in as much as possible so it felt a bit messy. I guess they wasted the budget on all those celebrities so could only afford 2hours...

I really enjoyed the fact that the film was filmed from a Cuban point of view rather than an American Cuban which is normally the case. A breath of fresh air.

P.S. Ana de whatever is a terrible actresse, she was extremely annoying in each scene, unless this was deliberate to represent "shallow" American culture at the time?! If not, please stop casting her.

Nice story

[ppagonis · 7/10 · 16 December 2021]

Interesting story, I m happy for watching this movie, very educated. Not surprised about the events..Casting was nice and many actores are known from previous TV serials.

The film functions as fictionalized news

[HERMANO_MANSON_DIXIT · 7/10 · 22 June 2020]

A multi-international production (France, Brazil, Spain, Belgium) deserved a premium Latin cast: Spanish Penélope Cruz, Venezuelan Edgar Ramírez (with two Netflix releases in less than two weeks), Brazilian WagnerMoura, Argentine Leonardo Sbaraglia, the Cubans Ana de armas and Tony Plana and the Mexican Gael Garcia Bernal. In just over two hours, the story of Cuban spies infiltrating the Miami exile network against the Fidel Castro government is told. And I recommend seeing the movie as if it were a fictionalized documentary, because the counter is as we already know what happens there is neither suspense nor emotion, and beware that I do not say it because it is bad, even the performances are very good, mainly that of the Spanish. I say this for example, the characters are shown as deserters, "worms" who escape from Cuba to go over to the enemy, that is exactly halfway through the film, only to show them as spies at the service of the revolution to anticipate and avoid attacks on Cuban soil. That if it were an invented story would have been an interesting plot twist, but as we already know what they play, it is like that remains in the air and is not surprising, even when they are captured. With a bit of general knowledge on the subject, we know that all of them were apprehended for about 15 years (some more others less), so that in the end it is not that there is a tension to see if they are caught or not or if they escape or what I meant that with no suspense or emotion. Features: the scenes in Cuba that seemed to be actually filmed there were made on the Gran Canaria Island of Spain, which aesthetically has a very similar "colonial of the 50s" vibe. De Armas and Moura pair up and do it again on Sergio Netflix Movie - 2020 The film functions as fictionalized news, at most as drama, not as one of spies or action or suspense.

Quite a mess

[Sir_AmirSyarif · 5/10 · 20 June 2020]

Olivier Assayas' 'Wasp Network' had the opportunity for substantial dramatic material with its fascinating based-on-a-true-story plot and a star-studded cast. Unfortunately, the story is so jam-packed with various narratives and characters it becomes convoluted, confusing, and tiring to watch. Quite a mess.

interesting viewpoint

[cesbel · 7/10 · 23 June 2020]

I don't understand the terrible reviews about this films, is it because it deals with political facts from another system alien to americans. Does this movie make them feel unconfortable? I think is always good to see different sides of the story to make our own conclusions. We are so used to listen just to one party, and this story shows the difficulties of the people involved in spionage. If one country has spionage networks on other countries without any legal implication, why a small country cannot do the same when they are planning to take down the system, a system that the people of that nation accepted?

Not good, but for the wrong reasons

[maseoane-15978 · 5/10 · 20 June 2020]

Many people here gave this movie a bad review because they don´t agre with it´s political views. I think that´s dumb. The movie is bad because it´s BORING and it doesn´t care about what it´s telling. Not because it might be historically innacurate or not being anti-castro enough!

BTW, Lots of hollywood movies despict historical events wrong or tergiversed but nobody seems to care this much, usually because they like that version more. They only care about the "agenda" in a movie when it´s different from their own, not when there is one.

Great film

[dealmeida-sandy · 9/10 · 7 May 2021]

Great film. Oddly paced, as many of Olivier Assayas' movies are, but it works. If you are even vaguely familiar with the politics involved, it's not hard to follow. Cast is phenomenal. Beautifully shot. Straightforward storytelling. If you are unfamiliar with assayas' style and are expecting a "blockbuster" action movie, you may be disappointed, as I assume most of the negative reviews were a result of. That's understandable, but I very much enjoyed this movie, and am otherwise not a huge fan of the director.

Mostly one side of the story, the Cuban

[miancu · 6/10 · 22 June 2020]

The movie is rather skewed towards making the Cuban spies look like the good guys, even if this message is not clearly articulated by anyone. How can you conclude otherwise when all the Cuban spies are portrayed like just the next door neighbor, doing what the regular next door neighbor would do, very nice people otherwise, going to church, with no express sentiments whatsoever for or against the US. Critically, there was absolutely no perspective in the movie from the US side. It's like "we are here to spank a few bad boys from our neighborhood, no big deal". When in reality the anti-Castro revolutionaries were more that just tolerated in the US, so when these spies went against them you would expect that they implicitly went against some hidden US policy goals. None of this state against state struggle was apparent in the movie. in a very short segment the movie portrayed official relations more as cordial, even if distrustful. While the movie was not so bad, the skewness was too far off.

Wasp Network

[marmar-69780 · 4/10 · 13 August 2020]

Wasp Network was a film that had a great potential in it,either through a story that has interesting idea and premise and also cast had some great names in it,but all of that didnt mean nothing in the end and this film was a dissapointment to me,story was all over the place ,it didnt felt connected and it felt like there were to many changes between characters so i coudnt care for any of them,i liked that they decided to use Cuba as location cause very little films go there to film projects,and even if said location was pretty and it had charm in it ,it lacked bigger impact to me,Wasp Network was a dissapointment in end

Interesting...

[Thanos_Alfie · 6/10 · 15 November 2020]

"Wasp Network" is an Action - Drama movie in which we watch the lives of five Cuban political prisoners who went in the United States and imprisoned there because they were accused of espionage and murder. We follow their lives and the choices they made since the late 1990s.

I liked this movie because it had a very interesting plot and much of suspense. In addition to this, it has to be mentioned that "Wasp Network" is based on true events. Regarding the interpretations, I have to say that I found simply amazing the interpretations of Wagner Moura who played as Juan Pablo Roque, Edgar Ramírez who played as Rene Gonzalez and Penélope Cruz who played as Olga Salanueva. Some other interpretations that have to be mentioned were Gael García Bernal's who played as Gerardo Hernandez and Ana de Armas' who played as Ana Magarita Martinez. In the end, I have to say that "Wasp Network" is a nice movie to watch and spend your time with because even if you are not a fan of action movies I am sure that you will enjoy it.

It is worth watching

[fhestrella · 7/10 · 27 June 2020]

The movie depicts interesting facts about one of the most conflicting issues of our times in between Cuba and USA. The drama, which has an amazing cast, tells a story that most of us lived in the 90s. The acting was very good and everyone did a great job demonstrating the facts as believed by the creators of this movie. The movie in the other hand used a topic which is sensitive and conflicting for both USA and Cuba, pretty hard to tell from either point of view and even harder to tell in just one movie. Many details were left behind that could've told the story in a better more accurate way. I believe this could've been a great mini series or even have a season to go over some of the very interesting facts that happened during that time. Watch the movie, it is very interesting, the photography, acting and story are great, if you can keep up with the jumps and perhaps lack of continuity in some of the plots in the story.

Great cast, average directing

[thomasrumeau · 6/10 · 4 July 2020]

The movie includes a great cast, the picture is fantastic, and the story is very interesting. A bunch of spies who work for the Cuban government to protect its interests. In addition you could feel that this was not a low budget movie. Despite all of that I was a bit underwhelmed by the whole movie. I felt things moved too fast sometimes, there were important aspects that were barely touched by the director. Important characters were only slightly explored. What made one of the characters plant bombs in Cuba? What was driving the main leaders of the anti-Castro movement? What was driving the spies? All of that was implicitly covered but barely explored. In addition the timing was hard to keep track. We did not know when things were occurring. At the end the story was disappointing because there were so much potential.

Was that bad?

[ks-60500 · 6/10 · 18 July 2020]

Reviews I read were poor about this film. But to me it's a good reveal of Cuba history of the wasp network. The movie did do its job to tell most of the happenings, objectively. At least details about the FBI spy on the suspects not mentioned in the movie. Cuba sport player I know escape their country for reason and US FBI act was right or not or just purely on political consideration can't be told from the movie. It actually brings me interests about the whole conspiracy topic. But we never know the truth as always.

All over the place, not worth the investment in time

[rubyandmikehall · 4/10 · 21 June 2020]

The plot jumps all over the place. Multiple storylines that don't interlink well at all, which was disappointing because some of true characters were really strong. Some strange decisions on camera angles and sequencing also don't make it easy on the eye.

I miss my Jeep Cherokee

[nogodnomasters · 7/10 · 4 July 2020]

The film is based on a true story centering around Rene Gonzalez (Edgar Ramírez ) an American born Cuban refugee living in Miami. During the 1990s Cuban-Americans were attacking Cuban industries and ran drugs to finance their operation. Castro sent "spies" to Miami to infiltrate these groups and report back as to their operations.

I recall the planes being shot down, now I know the story behind it. The family interactions were interesting. Worth a Netflix moment.

Guide: F-word, sex, nudity (Ana de Armas )

I don't care much about factual accuracy, the movie has other more important flaws

[gcarpiceci · 4/10 · 3 February 2020]

I don't have a detailed knowledge of the Wasp Network facts, nor am I interested to obtain it as, all in all, it represents a minor event. I saw that many reviews focus only on the historical accuracy of the movie, which - in my view - is just a secondary, if not tertiary, criterion of judgement. I think Wasp Network is a movie which does not live up to the ambitions it lets transpire; I think the main flaw is that the story is rather complicated but not so relevant, original or dramatic. The second flaw is that the director's choices made an already complicated story quite confused. Last, but not least, the performances of such a glossy cast are disappointing to say the least. So, when a movie stacks such a pile of problems, whether its historical accuracy is high, average or low is not the key in myview.

Great movie

[marcusflorida2 · 8/10 · 20 June 2020]

I had a great time watching this movie. It is always good to hear the other side of political stories. Yes, there's always another side. So, the movie is entertaining for sure. Every bad (one star) review here is simply politically biased. It is just people that can't stand Cuba's point of view. My advise is that you should watch and judge it by yourself. It's not supposed to be a documentary, but it is an incredible story based on real facts and real people. Have fun.

Interesting story brought to the screen

[pattie7459 · 7/10 · 25 May 2022]

Knowing little about Cuban history on this side of the world, this movie was interesting , enlightening and suspenseful, with great expressive performances.

Terrible film. Not for any political reason but merely as filmmaking fiasco.

[galic79 · 2/10 · 22 June 2020]

Olivier Assayas is a French director so full of himself and his own ego that keeps making self-indulgent and boring movies, that are huge failures both financially and artistically. This film did horribly at international film festivals, so there's barely any artistic value in it, except perhaps it's cinematography. The A-List cast deliver mediocre performances, poorly directed, and the accents are all over the place. The movie failed at getting any distribution deals throughout 2019, to finally settle for Netflix; simply cause no distributor saw any value in a 2hr plus painfully long narrative with no point of view. Assayas is so all over the place with the narrative and disorienting chronological jumps that not even the documentary style narrator's voice over can save it. Totally out of tone and anticlimactic to hear history channel style voice over in a narrative film. Despite its historical inaccuracies, the movie fails to examine the most valuable dramatic conflict of all: How a self-discerning man who escapes a tyrannical dictatorship returns to it after experiencing the free world. That character study would be by far more dramatically rewarding that the mere archetypes this film presents. As in many more of his previous films, like "Carlos", Assayas is more interesting in set design, and signage accuracy than emotional accuracy, and the movie falls flat. It's a boring, long, waste of 2hrs.

My Father is a Pilot for Brothers to the Rescue

[reinaldojmartin · 18 April 2023]

This movie is a disgrace to the brave people that are a part of the the HUMANITARIAN group Brothers to the Rescue. They are a group that would drop food and water for Cuban refugees fleeing Castro's Communism. I have family that died at the hands of the Castro Regime for standing up against the atrocity that plagues the Cuban people and this movies attacks a man that started this incredible group (Jose Basulto) and the men like my father that sacrificed time and safety to help their fellow Cuban refugees. Its a false narrative that glorifies communists and takes away from the incredible things people like my father have risked it all for.