Che
Che Pt 1 and 2 is a labour of love for Benicio Del Toro who is his usual masterful self portraying the Argentinean revolutionary icon Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Unfortunately it’s also very laborious for audiences. It’s broken up into two films which may be screened with an intermission at twice the price or released in sequence. Either way it represents four and a half hours of time that moviegoers will have to budget for. Part one is the rise of the revolution in Cuba where Che was Castro’s right hand man and eventually a USA media darling (although even in the fifties and sixties one questions the genius of a doctor disabled by asthma that chain smokes big fat cigars). Part two is Che’s attempt to export revolution to the rest of Latin America. We pick up after the Motorcycle Diaries left off however despite some impressive cinematography the point of this epic celluloid duo is elusive other than maybe to illustrate that the whole of the Guevara/Castro ensemble was probably greater than the sum of its parts. Perhaps this is merely an homage to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban revolution but director Steven Soderbergh could have told the tale in a lot less time. Like Guevara’s revolutionary ideas the movie too is a hard sell.