Steeped in authentic, gritty realism, Steven Soderbergh's biopic of revolutionary and guerrilla fighter Ernesto "Che" Guevara, filmed in 2 parts, is definitely NOT a lazy Sunday view.
Both Che Parts 1 & 2 demand your undivided attention, with it's docu-drama approach and sombre pacing.
Top marks for a commanding performance by Benicio Del Toro in the titular role, an authentic recreation of teeming jungle locales and shanty towns dotted around it's fringes and Soderbergh's largely unknown cast who bring the harsh drudgery, sickness prone and violence infested life of an impoverished resistance movement to splendid life.
Deduct those same marks for an almost hagiographical rendering of a T-Shirt adorning icon.
There's virtually nothing here for for those seeking events, experiences or even catalysts shaping and defining Che's transformation from ordinary man to extraordinary revolutionary in his zealous embracing of La Causa.
What drives this man, who after a victorious Cuban Revolution, that saw him fight alongside Fidel Castro to depose the ruling regime of Fulgencio Batista and chronicled in Part 1, to then chuck all vestiges of an ostensibly privileged existence in Havana to head south to Bolivia to relive another Hell-ish tour of Jungle Duty in resurrecting yet another Dictator Deposing Cause, depicted in Part 2?
As the movie is adapted from Che's own diaries, the glossing over of less savoury aspects of the man (presiding over numerous executions during his stint in Cuba. for one) is understandable. But this viewer still wanted a little more Man and a little less Icon.
You get Che the Firebrand castigating American Imperialism and it's supporters during a UN Assembly, Che the Leader dispensing discipline and justice, Che the Healer dispensing medication and Che the Writer and Thinker to his group of backwoods soldiers, but what you don't get, frustratingly so, is inside the man's head.
The pace, already leisurely in the first part, gets positively lugubrious in the second, with interminable scenes of the Communist guerrillas in the jungle talking, making camp, hiding and running wit the odd burst of excitement provided by the odd burst of gunfire during the rebels' numerous skirmishes with the ruling military forces.
Given the effectiveness of a cast of relative unknowns in 2 movies with dialogues almost entirely in Spanish, Soderbergh's choice of throwing the odd Famous Face or 2 is perplexing, to say the least. Oh look! There's Franka Potente, a Miss If You Blink Matt Damon (providing more fodder for trivia lovers to say that's 2 leads of The Bourne franchise re-united in this movie) and Lou "Where the hell's he been " Diamond Phillips.
When Che finally fulfills his destiny as a martyr to The Cause, you're left hardly knowing anything about a character you spent than 4 hours of screen time with.
Che the film is always intriguing, occasionally arresting but isn't consistently engaging enough to warrant this epic treatment
KayKay's recommendation: Only for die hard fans of the Argentine revolutionary (with lots of leisure time)
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