Product Description

On the trail of Castro's would-be killers the filmmakers meet a series of extraordinary characters - 2 are also men accused of being terrorists still living free in America. Orlando Bosch accused by many of being the greatest terrorist in the hemisphere is found living peacefully in his Miami home surrounded by an adoring family. They also catch up with Antonio Veciana the Cuban American who got closest to killing Castro on 3 occasions who now runs a marine store in Miami. These men and others the film reveals were supported and funded by the United States. At one point staggeringly the CIA even sought the help of the Mafia in the hope that they would succeed.System Requirements:Running Time: 90 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. UPC: 787364778492

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #65566 in DVD
• Brand: BCI ECLIPSE LLC
• Released on: 2007-05-08
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 78 minutes

Amazon.com
Made for Britain's Channel 4, Dollan Cannell's dynamic documentary may be non-fiction, but it often plays like pitch-black comedy. While screen history has produced King Kong, Godzilla, and other seemingly indestructible creatures, Fidel Castro's close calls and near misses put most such fictional characters to shame. As Cannell claims, "More people have tried to murder the world's most famous Socialist than any man alive." The director examines the reasons opponents have been gunning for Cuba's president for over four decades. Diplomats, activists, secret agents, and would-be assassins provide potential answers. The consensus is that Castro turned out to be more of an oppressor than the liberator he promised to become. Cannell then looks at some of the bizarre methods employed, from poison milkshakes to exploding cigars. Stylistically, he alternates between archival footage (including clips from crime films and television shows) and contemporary interviews. He further jazzes up the proceedings with a retro thriller soundtrack. This keeps things moving along, although more concrete information, like specific dates, would've been nice. That said, Fabian Escalante's companion book, Executive Action: 634 Ways To Kill Fidel Castro, helps to fill in some of those gaps. In the end, Cannell isn't making fun of Castro--or his country--but riffing on the parallels between the leader's real-life misadventures and the cinematic kind. The phrase "stranger than fiction" predates El Presidente, but when it comes to the Beard, all bets are off. Extras include interviews with Cannell and former President Jimmy Carter. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Customer Reviews

Filled with the early stuff.
This DVD despite being made recently feels a little dated because most of the attempted assassins are now elderly. Since many of the attempts on Castro date to the 1960s and 1970s, the people involved are now aging. I'd like to know more about recent attempts as well.

It does provide a fascinating glimpse into the presidents of the US. In a short segment it breaks down the plans or assassination by president. It's kind of a shorthand for the politicians attitudes towards Cuba.

Unfortunately the one thing this movie really lacks is running time. For a movie that about 638 ways to kill Castro it barely covers a dozen.

Whacking the Beard
Conspiracy-a-go-go enthusiasts will definitely want a peek at British director Dollan Cannell's documentary, "638 Ways to Kill Castro".

Mixing archival footage with some knowledgeable talking heads (including a surprising number of would-be assassins-it's hard to believe this many lived to tell their tale!), Cannell traces the evolution of Cuban politics via a recap of literally hundreds of attempts by the U.S. government to knock off Fidel over the years.

The number in the title (638) is derived from a list compiled by a couple of former members of Castro's security team (they are among the interviewees). They even go so far as to crunch the numbers by U.S. presidential administration (thier resulting breakdown may surprise you.)

The film begins its timeline in 1959, the year that the CIA received the first official go-ahead to take Castro out. The initial schemes sound like they were hatched by Wile E. Coyote and his Acme Intelligence Agency. The plans ranged from relatively benign subversion (making his beard fall out, spraying a TV station with LSD while Castro was on air,a contingency to accuse Cuba of zapping John Glenn's space capsule with "magnetic rays," had Glenn not made it back to Earth) to more ominous (a poisoned diving suit, booby trapping shellfish in Castro's favorite scuba diving spot with dynamite, and most famously, planting poisoned and/or exploding cigars into his humidor).

Although Cannell initially appears to be playing for yucks (especially with the exploding cigar type shtick) the underlying theme of the documentary soon becomes much more sobering. The most chilling revelation arises from an examination of the possible machinations behind the downing of a commercial Cuban airliner off of Barbados in 1976.

This is a fascinating film; the only criticism I would give it is the director's "wacky" approach (that kooky CIA and their nutty ideas!)-it doesn't quite match the subject matter at times. My favorite quote from the doc sums it all up quite nicely-when asked to explain the decades-long obsession about Castro by one administration after another, one pundit cracks "There's just something about (Castro's) Cuba that affects these administrations like the full moon affects a werewolf...there's no real logic at work here."

campy "reefer madness" style historical account
one-sided "demonized castro" perspective with a toss in a light and broadway spectacle soundtrack, made for mass consumption of this view.

if you do watch this, balance it out by watching "Fidel - The Untold Story". what "638 ways" sweeps under the rug is how cuba was run by imperial puppetmen and never had regulating power of it's own. the reasons for the assassinations, reinstate more puppetmen.