REVIEW Che: Part Two

By Philip Martin

Ernesto "Che" Guevara (Benicio Del Toro) and his wife Aleida (Catalina Sandino Moreno) stand their ground in Che: Part Two.

ADVERSTISMENT

LITTLE ROCK — In the first episode, intrepid hero of the revolution Ernesto "Che" Guevara (Benicio Del Toro) liberates Cuba from Batista's dollar-stained grip, then goes to New York for an interview, some parties and to address the United Nations, and - off-camera - orders the execution of hundreds of Cuban dissidents.

As our story opens, Che is arriving in Bolivia, disguised as a middle-age businessman from Uruguay. He drives deep into the mountains and meets with guerrillas eager to receive him. Like the disciples of Christ, they have among their number the occasional Judas, and things do not go as well in Bolivia as they did in Cuba.

Movie

Che: Part Two

87

Rating: R

Length: 2 hours, 12 minutes

More information

There are powerful forces allied against our star, including the CIA, and in some senses Che: Part Two is the more arresting mirror image of Che: Part One - this time it is Che and his comrades who are perpetually ambushed and harried by government soldiers. Instead of spreading, the revolution contracts until the Bolivian army has its base camp surrounded. The locals don't quite trust him - they think he's a cocaine smuggler. Che's asthma is acting up. Finally, he's wounded and captured. A CIA agent arrives and authorizes his execution. His body is strapped to a helicopter's landing skids and the martyr's body is taken away.

Did I spoil anything? Not really, for the purpose of Steven Soderbergh's movie is not to tell the story or even to gloss the politics of the man Jean-Paul Sartre described as "the most complete human being of our age." Soderbergh seems more interested in giving us something of the feeling of hanging out with Ernesto, the over-serious physician who was apotheosized into a dorm poster icon.

Within those modest parameters, Che: Part Two is a technical masterpiece - a movie that coolly avoids the courting of empathy for its protagonist. Soderbergh has his own ideas about Che, and he knows that any moviegoer likely to spend four hours with the subject (each Che film has a running time of about two hours) probably comes equipped with a set of unchangeable opinions. You can make something out of what Soderbergh elides, but the truth is he shows the evolution of a sensitive man into a brutal ideologue, the sort who murders out of selfless love for mankind.

All snarkiness aside, Che: Part Two is a deeply interesting and commercially brave movie, one that recognizes the limits inherent in cinematic biography. It is meant to be experienced, not sounded for meanings, and is weakest when Soderbergh caves into his poetic impulses - Che slumps in the saddle, like Shane and El Cid, and we remember it's only a movie.

Che - and we're considering both parts together - is an anti-epic, a long historical film that assumes the audience knows the outline of the narrative and, beyond the installation of Del Toro in the lead role, refuses to glamorize its subject. It is more about cinema verite textures than the unearthing of pyrite insights.

MovieStyle, Pages 37 on 03/27/2009