AllMovie

A gangster finds out that even crime is different in Cuba after the revolution in this darkly comic fusion of film noir and contemporary crime thriller. A strong-arm man who worked in Havana for a powerful American crime boss finds himself wondering what to do next when Fidel Castro comes to power, leaving the enforcer in Cuba while his boss is in the United States. When the hooligan finally gets word from his boss in America, he's given a special assignment -- a cache of valuables was left in the mobster's home in Havana, and he's been instructed to find them and put them in safekeeping until a way can be found to smuggle them out of the country. It doesn't take long for the plan to run awry; the house has been seized by the Communist authorities and the mobster's former maid now lives there, and when the valuables can't be found, the strong-arm man and his inexperienced sidekick end up taking her hostage along with a policeman who happened along. Directed by Pavel Giroud, Omerta received its North American debut at the 2009 Havana Film Festival New York.