Inés Sastre as Aurora Fellove Tomas Milian as Don Federico Fellove Millie Perkins as Doña Cecilia Fellove Richard Bradford as Don Donoso Fellove Nestor Carbonell as Luis Fellove Enrique Murciano as Ricardo Fellove Dustin Hoffman as Meyer Lansky Bill Murray as The Writer Jsu Garcia as Che Guevara Juan Fernández de Alarcón as President Fulgencio Batista Elizabeth Peña as Miliciana Muñoz Depictions Che Guevara In one scene of the film actor Jsu Garcia as Che Guevara is shown after an ambush casually shooting a wounded Fulgencio Batista soldier where he lies. Later in the film the Guevara character asks Andy García's character why he "bothers with such scum", in reference to a former Batista officer who was executed that morning. Bill Murray as "The Writer" Bill Murray appeared in the movie as the character of "the Writer". He shows up early in the movie asking Fico for a job, and hovers around Fico, commenting on the absurdities of life, though never playing a clear part in those absurdities. According to the “making of” video, the role is similar to that of a Greek chorus and is really the personality of the movie's author G. Cabrera Infante. Again, according to the making-of video, Murray was given some latitude in improvising dialogue – the scene toward the end where Murray and Hoffman (as Meyer Lansky) discuss egg creams was almost entirely improvised. Location The movie was filmed in various locations in the Dominican Republic due to similarity of landscape, vegetation and architecture. The palace scenes were filmed at the Dominican National Palace and the tobacco estate is that of Arturo Fuente. Critical response The film generally received unfavorable reviews. Rotten Tomatoes' collection of critics gave the film a 25% approval rating, with the stated consensus that "what starts as a promising exercise devolves into an overlong, unevenly directed disappointment." Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice critiqued the historical validity of the film, stating "García's tale bemoans the loss of easy wealth for a precious few. Poor people are absolutely absent; García and Infante seem to have thought that peasant revolutions happen for no particular reason—or at least no reason the moneyed 1 percent should have to worry about." Stephen Holden of The New York Times'' described the political dialogue in the film as "strictly of the junior high school variety" while opining that the "characters pontificate in generalities and aphorisms" making them