It’s unusual for a Western film to present spies for Fidel Castro as the heroes. And that novelty, alas, is one of the few selling points of “Wasp Network,” a surprising disappointment from Olivier Assayas, one of the more interesting and eclectic filmmakers working today.
Assayas previously teamed with Edgar Ramírez on the gripping “Carlos,” but this time, the true-story aspect of this docudrama seems to have bogged down the filmmaker. When he has occasion to put the plot aside and focus on the characters, “Wasp Network” comes to life, but these moments are too few and far between.
The story itself is fascinating — in the 1990s, Cuban pilots René González (Ramírez) and Juan Pablo Roque (Wagner Moura, “Narcos”) made headlines by escaping Cuba and defecting to the United States.