When a filmmaker wants to tackle a delicate subject like the Cuban Revolution and the subsequent dictatorship of Fidel Castro, the discussion turns inevitably into the political. There is an “American” position against the horrors of communism as the cause of Cuba’s socioeconomic impoverishment. The “revolutionary” argument states the American blockade is to blame for any failure and wrongdoing that affect the country. To find a middle ground seems impossible and would be viewed as suspect from the two extremes on the political spectrum. This last road was taken by Olivier Assayas in his most recent film, Wasp Network. Set in the 1990s, it centers on the terrorist operations orchestrated by exiled Cubans in Miami and the espionage network that managed to infiltrate counterrevolutionary organizations.

As an espionage movie and a political thriller based on real-life events, its premise is juicy enough to allow the director to combine flashy resources from typical action flicks and the more sociological concerns that Assayas likes to explore. Think about what he achieved with Carlos (2010), a movie with an epic running time (more than 300 minutes), usually promoted as a miniseries, that dares to explore the life of a Marxist terrorist, Carlos el Chacal, with all his fascinating contradictions. So Assayas seems the perfect director to address similar complexities about the Cuban Revolution and its longtime opposition. However, the results say otherwise.

Wasp Network is probably one of the weakest entries in the usually worthwhile filmography of the critically revered French director. Before revealing a broad political and historical perspective, its first scenes focus on a family living in Cuba. In 1990, René González (Edgar Ramírez, teaming again with Assayas after his breakthrough role in Carlos) leaves behind his wife, Olga (Penélope Cruz), and his young daughter to escape Cuba, piloting a stolen airplane to the United States. He won’t ask for political asylum because he already has double nationality, Cuban and American.

Though his migratory case is more simple compared with other Cubans, he is also another dissident from Castro’s revolution exiled in Miami (what Cubans call a gusano, which translates as worm). René attracts instant attention from the bosses behind organizations who seek the ouster of Castro, so he agrees to participate in their operations. Some of them include illegal flights into Cuban airspace to drop pamphlets or provisions to those escaping the country by sea. Other cases involves drug trafficking outside the United States, activities that produce money to finance the liberation. René also discovers these objectives involve terrorist attacks. Meanwhile, his family back in Cuba has to endure the stigma of being related to a traitor.

A year later, Juan Pablo Roque (Wagner Moura), another renegade Cuban pilot, touches American soil after swimming for days, wearing only a diving suit. He starts a new life when he marries Ana Margarita (Ana de Armas). Dazzled by the charm of Juan Pablo and his “movie star” looks (something everyone jokes about), Ana Margarita begins noticing that her fiancé has a lot of money and luxury items (a cellphone, very unusual in the early ‘90s, and a Rolex) that can only be earned through an illegal business. By the time Gerardo Hernández (Gael García Bernal) is introduced, the plot has become so convoluted that it’s easy to get confused and start losing interest.

Henceforth, the ideological complications present an ambivalent vision where the characters don’t resemble real persons with doubts and fears about their loyalties, and instead they only act as faithful soldiers who never question their actions. (If Assayas feels sympathy for the Cuban revolutionaries, then the movie is unable to inspire the same feeling.) The acting, in pilot mode from the majority of the cast, also doesn’t helps. Wasp Network united some of the most talented and attractive Ibero-American actors of the moment, but none of them leaves a memorable impression, except de Armas. Her feelings are honest and human, unlike the rest.

On the other side of the balance, the criticism against the United States as a silent accomplice of the groups that promoted terrorist attacks in Cuban territory (the bombing of a hotel in La Habana) never scratches beyond the surface. So what is this movie really about? Scene by scene, it seems that Assayas wanted to use the fanfare of a Hollywood blockbuster to create something smarter and more politically lucid. He didn’t succeed. The execution is generic with no personality, and the result is a little bit boring.

Wasp Network is watchable enough, but when informative title cards report what happened with the real-life characters portrayed, consider yourself lucky if you remember anything concrete about the movie once it’s finished. You may say this about many of the recently released movies available on Netflix (there are some notable exceptions, like Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods). Their accessibility during the pandemic have perhaps gained them large audiences, but they have barely inspired conversations one week after their streaming premiere. Saying this about an Assayas movie is different. The aftertaste can’t be less than disappointing.