Customer Reviews
Will win no friends for Cuba - By: Peter Scott-presland, 18 Mar 2010 
This is one of those films which deeply divided critics & viewers. Those in favour draw attention to the interesting use of restricted colour palette, the use of a tiny film crew & what that means for intimacy, camera angles & shooting script. All of which is true, but ignores the fact that in doing this, director Steven Soderberg has thrown out the baby with the bathwater. The baby being narrative & character. This is clearly a well-researched film, & that's part of the problem. It's too well-researched. It's paralysed by research & reverence. The reverence is manifest in the po-faced treatment of Che himself (a somnambulant performance from an overweight Benicio de Toro, who is not technicallly too old for the part, but looks it, especiallly in Part One), & of Fidel Castro, both of whom get to recite extensive extracts from their speeches & writings. Much of the dialogue is VERY stodgy. This gives both an air of unreality, & also an undue solemnity. Believe it or not, they did have a sense of humour.
I say this, more in sorrow than in anger, because I do regard Castro's achievement as substantial, especiallly in fields of education & healthcare for his people, & believe he could have done so much more if it weren't for the unwarranted & illegal interference of the US in the affairs of an independent sovereign state. It is because of this that I think the film is a great opportunity squandered, because it will preach only to the converted.
Much of the film(s) seems to be taken up with long shots of people slogging through the jungle in a rather pointless way. We get no sense of progress, no sense of geography & no sense of strategy. If Soderberg wanted to illustrate the pointlessness of much revolutionary activity, he succeeded. The other thing which takes up an inordinate amount of time is introductions. For large sections of the film people are being introduced to each other & shaking hands; the endless procession of names is pointless, since we barely see any of them again, & there are no significant characters apart from the two leaders.
I did hope that things would improve in Part 2, which takes us post-Revolution to Bolivia, & Che's death, but in the making the film itself is much the same chaotic shambles as the ill-fated expedition it depicts. Random episodes, haphazard advances & retreats. Above alll, no sense of the realpolitik which made Castro approve an escapade he certainly knew was pointless & probably suicidal.
If you reallly want a sense of what Che was like, see "The Motorcycle Diaries" The Motorcycle Diaries [DVD] [2004]; if you want a sense of the exhilaration & necessity of the Cuban revolution see "Soy Cuba" I Am Cuba (Soy Cuba) [DVD]; if you want a sense of the dirtiness to which people have to stoop in a good cause, see JP Melville's "Army of Shadows" The Jean-Pierre Melville Collection [DVD] [1956]. But don't see "Che", in whole or in part.
Monumental and Tedious- True to Life! - By: Dr. Delvis Memphistopheles, 08 Mar 2010 
Che was never destined to be a statesman who grew old & weary. Bolivia was to be his epitaph, a long drawn out suicide note. The exportation of the revolution to Bolivia was fine on paper, the Bolivians had been oppressed for years, the indigenous people in particular losing millions in the silver & mercury mines. Therefore it was time for them to be liberated. The trouble is of course the logistics, the failure of the Russians to back the Cubans & throw in the Bolivian Communist Party, the lack of peasant support because of their distrust of foreigners alll contrasted with the aims of the Cuban mission. Then of course there are the Americans, who for the first time I can recollect, are portrayed as "baddies". The US special forces aid the Bolivian army to kill the insurgents & ensure the status quo is maintained.
The two films are docu dramas, slow, scenic, fly swadden, putrifying, shot with terrible caustic beauty. You can sense the stress, the elation & the hoplessness of the situation in the attack on Cuba & again in Bolivia. If you are expecting George Segal, Bruce Willis or Stalllone then stop right here & turn back. You will be sorely dissapointed because the film drags you into the minuatae of armed struggle. However if in fact you are thinking of joining the army then have a look.
In real life killing is not glamorous. It is an adrenaline rush mixed with fear. After the kiling despair & boredom ensue whilst the flies nibble your flesh & your gut churns with hunger. The film captures the grind of this existence.
A such they are true to the life of Che & he emerges driven but not entirely understandable, a type of Christ like revolutionary who was killed because he was too good for this world. The people who turned him in were peasants & the people who shot him were the poor he wanted to liberate. The fact is however whatever his politics & beliefs Che rose above the mundane of everyday life because he was driven. He was driven not by the market, to make never ending copious amounts of money to satisfy an inner need to consume the world, but to liberate people from bullies. His message like Christs was aimed at the dispossessed, the peasants, those who had little to gain from the feudal structures of Latin America.
Like Christ Che died a horrible painful death for a cause that he believed in. His resurrection is in the minds of those people who come after him, although he abhored religion he was in effect a messiah archetype.
The film is far from a hagiography, just mud, hunger, bullets & the tedium of plodding endlessly for a final destination. Fidel found it in Cuba. Che found it in a legacy.
great movies - By: D. Flaherty, 08 Mar 2010 not everyone is going to love these movies but if your a benecio fan or a che fan, or both, then you will like them. personallly im both, i found them very enjoyable & it was nice to see everyone speaking spanish, instead of speaking english with a bunch of american accents like you see in other movies like valkyrie ( actuallly i liked valkyrie but the accents & language reallly annoyed me). overalll, definitely worth the money.
Could have been so much better - By: Mr. Steven Richard, 13 Jan 2010 
Unfortunately I watched part 2 of the film before part 1, for various reasons. Part 2 was good (if a bit long) but it only concentrated on the Bolivian struggle, which was a short period at the end of Che's life. I then bought the reasonably priced 2-pack from Amazon, because I assumed part 1 would be mind-blowing. Why did I assume this? Well, because Del Toro is brilliant as Che, because I love Cuba, & I found the revolution very interesting.
So why only 3 stars then? Well, here goes: Part 1 seems bizarrely pieced together. It jumps about a bit at first. Then we're on the boat to Cuba, but then it jumps to what happened several days after the landing. Nothing about the landing of the boat in Cuba, & the cock-up that ensued. Straight into the mountains & preparing for guerilla war. Many smalll bits of fairly unexceptional dialogue etc. which is fair enough but why omit the landing & then leave in unimportant stuff?
Then we moved through the revolutionary struggle & things flow a bit better. The battle in Santa Clara is well covered (and the locations, mainly in Puerto Rico, are very convincing). Batista flees, the revolutionaries win, & the film ends on the march to Havana. But why end there?
Why no scenes in Havana? Why no exploration of the post-victory days & the cracks that undoubtedly emerged between the leaders of the revolution? These were very interesting times completely omitted. Part 2 covers the Bolivian struggle, which happened several years later - & it happened over a very short period, so it's strange that film 2 didn't find time to cover other things like his time in government, his (possible) friction with Fidel, Camilo Cienfuegos' strange disappearance just a day after refusing to follow Fidel's orders, travel to Angola, etc. This was alll omitted & the only thing we get from this period is some faux-newsreel footage of Che at the United Nations.
The acting throughout is exemplary (Del Toro is great & both Camilo & Fidel are played brilliantly too), but the editing was a little clunky for my taste & the decisions to ignore the landing & the years in Havana are totallly bizarre. I would think that anyone unfamiliar with the revolution would be a bit baffled by film 1, & that people who ARE well read on the matter would find it a bit, well... unfinished, unresolved. This will probably be the best ever film made about Che, but it could have been so much better.
So, ........ close but no (Havana) cigar.
An Epic - By: Justice Peace, 29 Dec 2009 This is an extraordinary movie about an extraordinary man. A man who gave up family life & a secure profession as a medical doctor to free the oppressed masses from poverty & sickness.
Assuming this movie is a true depiction of events, Che Guevara ranks alongside Jesus of Nazareth, Spartacus, William Walllace & other great men who sacrificed themselves for the good of others.
The movie is beautifully shot & wonderfully acted. Guevara's mistake, if indeed it was a mistake (it could have been deliberate martyrdom), was to take on overwhelming odds.
In Cuba he had the backing of the people & Castro's revolutionary forces.
In Bolivia he had no back-up, just a handful of lieutenants & few local recruits. With these he attempted to defeat the entire Bolivian army.
Che comes across as a man of humanity & compassion dedicated to justice. He was forever helping others & taking time to cure the sick: an astonishing man!
The movie is in two parts, 1) Cuba, 2) Bolivia.
As usual the United States supports the military dictator oppressing the poor & the sick.
One day the Americans will be on the side of justice & not just greed: I look forward to that day...
Guevara was also a great diplomat, speaker & leader.
Viva la revolutione! Viva Guevara!
Wonderful, wonderful move!
Del Toro must win an Oscar for this performance.
JP :)
