Havana (I) (1990)
Robert Redford: Jack Weil
Photos
Quotes
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[Bobby Duran enters a restaurant where Jack Weil is sitting]
Bobby Duran : Were you waiting for me?
Jack Weil : All my life.
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[First lines]
Jack Weil : [Voice over] I've been in a lot of places since Pearl Harbor. I like something about every one of them. Even Vegas. But there's only one city I miss. General Batista had been running the country for almost 30 years. But this was 1958. We weren't paying attention to the rebels in the hills. All we know about Havana was the lights in the Prado never went out and you had a damned good chance of having the time of your life.
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[Last lines]
Jack Weil : [Voice over] I sit with my back to the wall, watch the entrance. You never know who is gonna walk in. Somebody blown off course. This is hurricane country.
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Jack Weil : Fidel Castro was on the Jack Paar Show. So anything can happen.
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Jack Weil : I know I love you Bobbie. I also know that a butterfly can flutter its wings over China and cause a hurricane in the Caribbean. I believe it. They can even calculate the odds. It just isn't likely. And it takes so long.
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Jack Weil : The players I'm talking about don't walk up three flights.
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Jack Weil : Think about it, Joe. But don't take too long. The revolution might go away.
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Jack Weil : Aren't you impressed? What do you think - I'm just some kind of jerk trying to pick you up?
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Bobby Duran : You're very straight forward.
Jack Weil : Hey, I can be suave. But I figure you know a lot of suave guys. I've got no edge that way. But how many crude guys do you know?
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Jack Weil : I come down here to play cards.
Arturo Duran : Gambling?
Jack Weil : I try to keep the gambling to a minimum.
Arturo Duran : How do you do that?
Jack Weil : By being good at it.
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Jack Weil : Let me tell you something I learned in the Pacific, Joe. Nothing like the sound of some gunfire to stimulate a little action.
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Jack Weil : Silk blouse. Fancy car. What do you need with a revolution?
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Jack Weil : I've played every Elks Club and Moose Hall in America, Joe. And I remember every hand of every game and now I want a shot - one shot. At a game I could never get near before. With guys who don't even think how much they're playing for.
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Jack Weil : A funny thing happened to me last week. I realized I wasn't going to die young.
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Arturo Duran : Please don't misunderstand me. In fact, I'm fascinated by men like you. How you keep a kind of innocence.
Bobby Duran : Perhaps it isn't innocence at all. Perhaps Mr. Weil really doesn't give a damn.
Jack Weil : Hey! I know politicians, okay. I play cards with them. And I love to because they're easy to beat. It's the only place an ordinary man can beat a politician. I think I ought to join my friends.
Bobby Duran : It was good of you to take the time...
Arturo Duran : Why are they easy to beat?
Jack Weil : Because sometimes in poker it's smarter to lose with a winning hand so you can win later with a losing hand. And politicians can never quite believe that - because they want the power now.
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Jack Weil : I try to stay out of the way of things I don't understand.
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Jack Weil : You can't live ideas. Most things that are alive don't even have ideas. What's really going on happens before ideas. Before talk. Before anybody says anything. And after. In the quiet.
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Jack Weil : You want to change the world, Bobby? Change mine.
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Jack Weil : I came 200 miles for you without a cigarette.
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Jack Weil : I knew this old hustler when I was a kid. You know, ah, a mechanic, a crooked player. And he showed me how he had this diamond sewed into his arm by a doctor. So when I was in Yokahoma, I bought a diamond and I had a Jap doctor do it. See, the idea was that no matter how bad things got, no matter what they did to you, no matter what, you still had this last chance. You'll always have this diamond.
