Che A lengthy, not-always-captivating look at the revolutionary. * Grade: B- * Rated: R * Running time: 257 minutes

Che sometimes feels as long as one of Fidel Castro's famously interminable speeches. Clocking in at nearly 4 1/2 hours, director Steven Soderbergh's film demonstrates little interest in wooing a large, diversion-hungry audience.

Rather than creating a dramatized view of Ernesto "Che" Guevara's life, Soderbergh assembles a detailed, nearly microcosmic account of the revolutionary's activities during the Cuban revolution and later in Bolivia. (The movie is shown in two parts with a 15-minute intermission. Admission is $16.)

Although named for a single individual, this can't be called a big-screen biography. It doesn't delve into Che's early years or provide much by way of motivational insight. In the opening scene in Mexico City, an already committed Che meets Castro. It's almost as if he's auditioning Castro, looking to see whether his future comrade in arms has the right - er, make that left - stuff.

Soderbergh focuses on two guerrilla campaigns - one successful, the other not - Part One ("The Argentine") and Part Two ("The Guerrilla").

Che isn't designed to lure us with gimmicks or profound insights. I learned something about the mechanics of guerrilla warfare and less about the man whose name seems to have become synonymous with it. I'm not sure that Soderbergh has a strong view about Che, whose death ensured his status as an icon.

That status evidently wasn't something Che sought. Part One is interrupted by black-and- white segments in which Che, basking in the glow of a victory in Cuba, visits New York to speak at the United Nations. Che could have draped himself in the faux comforts of New York's radical chic, but those who saw him probably underestimated his tenacity. Che wasn't dabbling in revolution - his fatigues weren't a costume.

Making few references to Che's communism, the movie eventually gets around to articulating his core belief. As Che sees it, a true revolutionary either wins or dies. Forget the middle ground. Don't breeze by that sentence; Che didn't want to compromise. He wanted either to prevail or die; you know how the story ends.

It's not easy to distinguish among Soderbergh's large cast of characters, only a few of whom are clearly defined. Mexican actor Demian Bichir plays Castro, a man who seems more decisive than Benicio del Toro's quiet, withdrawn and almost bookish Che.

The movie is dominated less by character than by a stream of small, sometimes telling incidents: Two youngsters want to join the guerrilla fighters; Che executes a rogue guerrilla for raping a peasant woman; Che insists that peasant farmers be paid for food the rebels take; the men who fight with Che train or engage in gruff camaraderie. Soderbergh observes the action as if he were a journalist dropped into the middle of a story that had yet to define itself.

In Part One, Castro, Che and cohorts meet in Mexico City in 1955. They then travel to Cuba in a small boat. Suddenly, we're in the Sierra Maestra Mountains with guerrillas who slowly work their way toward the capital. Soderbergh doesn't show Castro's march into Havana; it's as if that imaginary journalist I mentioned was called home suddenly.

Part II shifts to Bolivia, where Che hopes to spread the revolution. Instead, Soderbergh details what happens when a guerrilla movement lacks support from the local populace. Maybe he would have gone mad with boredom had he become a government fixture in Cuba. Who knows? In 1967, Che was captured and executed. There's drama in Che's final hours, but the slow dissolution of his Bolivian effort sometimes feels like the dissolution of the movie itself.

Del Toro's performance isn't easy to embrace. At times, he seems sphinx-like; it's difficult to portray a guerrilla fighter who wants only to put a shoulder to the wheel of history. Che seems egoless, sometimes even tender, not necessarily the best qualities for a man who occupies the center of a four-hour movie. If Motorcycle Diaries - the story of Che's early years - tended too much toward entertainment, this movie leans too far in the opposite direction.

Some have accused Soderbergh of romanticizing history. This may have more to do with what the director omits than with what he includes. Che refers to the tribunals at which many were executed, but they are not shown. Those who think Soderbergh's movie won't please either critics on the right or devotees on the left probably are correct. And those looking for a talking-points rendition of history surely will be disappointed.

Che is a very mixed achievement, admirably serious, obviously flawed, intermittently fascinating and too long. Because Soderbergh's march through a provocative piece of 20th- century history tries to free itself from interpretive shackles, it can leave us feeling a little stranded.

I know reviews tend to be most useful when they provide "yes" or "no" answers. See it or don't. But like the man who wanted to transform a continent, Che resists single-minded summary.

denersteinunleashed.blogspot.com

The basics

Che GuevaraUP was born June 14, 1928, in Argentina. He was trained as a doctor before gaining notoriety as a guerrilla warrior. He died in Bolivia on Oct. 9, 1967, executed by a U.S.-trained military force.

On the silver screen

Other movies about Guevara:

* Che Guevara (2005)

* The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)

* Che! (1969), which starred Omar Sharif as the revolutionary and Jack Palance as Fidel Castro.

Buy the Che way

Che's iconic image has been used to sell, among other things, products from Taco Bell, Converse, Burlington Coat Factory and a soap powder with the slogan "Che washes whiter."

Et cetera

* Argentine soccer legend Diego MaradonaUP has Che's image tattooed on his right arm.

* The Maryland Institute College of Art has called the iconic Alberto Korda photo of Guevara "the world's most famous photo."

* French intellectual Jean-Paul Sartre described Guevara as "the most complete human being of our age."

* After his execution, Bolivian forces amputated Che's hands for purposes of identification with records in Argentina.

* The location of his body remained secret until 1997, when it was discovered on a mountainside in Vallegrande, Bolivia, now a hotbed of Che merchandising.

Back to Top