Benicio Del Toro beards up to play iconic and divisive Marxist crusader Ernesto 'Che' Guevara in the first part of the two-film, epic biopic from director Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Oceans 11). The Argentine deals with the Cuban revolution in the late '50s, from the landing of Fidel Castro, Guevara and other revolutionaries up to the toppling of the dictator Fulgencio Batista.
If the director has gone out of his way to avoid the usual Hollywood biopic conventions, he has also withheld any suggestion of why the charismatic doctor, fighter, diplomat, diarist and intellectual theorist became and remains such a legendary figure; if anything, Che seems diminished by the way he's portrayed here.
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Che looks dazzling, whether the camera is weaving through a battle or trying to bore into Che's haunted soul. Del Toro stands up to Soderbergh's relentless scrutiny. As for the movie, it's a reward to audiences eager to break from the play-it-safe pack. Game on.
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Benicio Del Toro, one of the film's producers, gives a heroic performance, not least because it's self-effacing.
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The political realities of his legacy can be endlessly debated, but in this flawed work of austere beauty, the logistics of war and the language of revolution give way to something greater, a struggle that may be defined by politics but can't be contained by it.
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If this earnest, two-part biopic with a total running time of 268 minutes sometimes lacks cinematic flair, the straight-ahead, chronologically-driven film will inform and, to a somewhat lesser extent, excite viewers everywhere.
Full reviewWe aren’t aware of any way to watch Che: Part One - The Argentine in Australia. If we’ve got that wrong, please contact us.
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