No, there is more to it than that! This recent film does compare similarities with John Landis's classic in the plot, but the competent acting and general mood of the piece sets it apart in its own league.
The contemporary mood of troubles people coping in a troubled Havana is well caught by its director Benito Zambrano. I very much admire the originality of this piece, and also its attempts to make the film accessible to many audiences by using several traits which one may call 'stereotypical'.
Albeit the plot of two down on their luck desperate musicians is a familiar one but the genre of music struggles to make original in its own right.
One of the main problems is, its a situation many audiences have met before and there is not much Zambrano and his cast can do to avoid this. Personally, some of the music performed initially is quite weak but maybe this is to show Tito and Ruy's development in their music. I am not sure...
Some of the songs have real flavour- as personally I find a lot of Latin American produced Music does. Some try to heighten the films' messages- others seem just to be there to fill the running time.
The ensemble performances are very good, almost every character makes an impression- in particular Yaridad Sierra who plays Ruy's wife, Caridad is very very convincing.
I also really liked the straight talking grandmother- she was excellent! It's characters like that light up the movie, when things started to become very serious overall, thats the movie works really well as an ensemble piece. The individual performances were of a similar standard, the two leads Alberto Yoel (Ruy) and Roberto Sanmartin (Tito) were well cast.
Overall, this is an enjoyable movie if you do not analyse the film too much (probably my biggest mistake), there is a lot of sentiment that some may find endearing and others repulsive. However the content of the piece is so well thought out and fairly well presented that I can't help but like in its own way...
