El Super

New York City. (1978). February. Not the best time and place to be if you're a super for a ramshackle apartment building with a boiler on the fritz. But that is precisely what Roberto (Raymundo Hidalgo-Gato) is, and as the film opens, angry tenants are banging on the pipes demanding heat. Directors Leon Ichaso and Orlando Jimimez-Leal have put together an on-again off-again satire on expatriate life in the land of the dollar bill. While Roberto and his wife laud the ways of the old country, their 18-year-old daughter experiments with pot and sex in the new one. The family scenes in this low-budget independent film not only ring true in both their humor and desperation, but they provide a central locus to a rather unfocused film. Unfortunately too much of the movie is given over to the discussion of Cuban politics. To make matters worse, the names and events are specific to 1978. Had El Super not been a funny vehicle for a political diatribe, it would have been a much better film. As it is, modern audiences are going to tune out after the first 10-minute stretch of soapboxing. Not recommended. (R. Pitman)