Che Part One
2008
**½
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Demian Bichir, Kahlil Mendez, Rodrigo Santoro, Santiago Cabrera, Catalina Sandino Moreno
Since his death, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Argentinian doctor-turned-Marxist-revolutionary, has become a hero, a martyr and a symbol for his cause. This ambitious film is not your average Hollywood biopic which tries to compress 40 years of political and personal life into a neat two-hour package. The first part is framed with Che's speech at the UN in 1964 and it concentrates on his involvement in the Cuban Revolution from 1955 to 1958. And yet it feels like we learn nothing about him. Soderbergh's camera makes an accurate historical record but he doesn't attempt to analyse or understand the man behind the myth, which left me feeling detached. Followed by Che Part Two.
