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Home Subscribe About Us Features News Album Reviews Movie Reviews Past Movies Movie Resources Concert Reviews Book Reviews Top 10 Contact Us	Che Stars: Benicio Del Toro, Demian Bichir, Santiago Cabera, Julia Ormond, Franka Potente, Joaquim de Almeida and Catalina Sandino Moreno Director: Steven Soderbergh Scriptwriters: Peter Buchanan and Benjamin A.Van Der Veen Cinematography: Peter Andrews Composer: Alberto Iglesias Subtitled (Spanish) IFC Films Rating: R for language and war violence Running Length: five hours (Part One: The Argentine, Part Two: Guerilla) Director Steven Soderbergh must have really wanted to tell the story of Ernesto Che Guevara, because he takes five hours to do it. There are so many skirmishes in the mountains that you feel as though you have just finished a guerilla training course. Scriptwriters Peter Buchanan and Benjamin A. Van Der Veen put together a story of Che that does little to tell his story and is more a travelogue of Cuba and Bolivia. In Part One, Benicio Del Toro plays Che as an almost gentle man, who seems to enjoy being called “Doctor.” The first half of the film is set as Fidel Castro comes to power with Che as a planner. They learn how to fight with a minimum amount of troops and weapons. Battista, the Cuban leader at the time, is sorely tested. Men and women are recruited to fight as revolutionaries and those in power (landowners) must give back to the people. Che is shown as a family man with five children (wife played by Catalina Sandino Moreno) and he is gone so long, the younger children don’t recognize him when he returns. Demian Bichir’s Fidel Castro is a fiery man who can easily dominate a conversation. Part Two, though, shows Che in Bolivia. Why he left Cuba and chose to go there is not shown. I kept thinking this was Part Three and Part Two was lost in transit, but no, Soderbergh would have the audience go directly to Bolivia and follow Che as he goes through the motions---again---recruiting men and women, meeting villagers, waging guerilla warfare and avoiding Bolivian troops. The leader in Bolivia is Barrientos (played by Joaquim de Almeida), who is quietly aided by U.S. special forces. We see the fervor for fighting is not as high as Cuba and peasants here take a lackadaisical attitude toward it. Che begins to lose men and avoiding Bolivian troops is a must to avoid capture. Benicio Del Toro does a thoughtful job as Che. Here is a lanky man, who appears taller in Part One, but a bit stooped in Part Two. The weight of war is a heavy burden and he is shown trying to be a friend to his men. This is his film (he is a producer, too) and the rest of the cast has momentary flashes and then are gone. In this high hill country, there is always a shortage of supplies and dangerous rivers to cross. I just wish I knew why Che was there. Mention is made of his time in the Congo, and when was this? When and where did he go to school, plus when did he marry? I would have liked to know. Cinematography by Peter Andrews is exquisite, as is the soundtrack by Alberto Iglesias. It is difficult to tell people apart here, as men eventually grow long beards and let their hair remain long, everyone wears military fatigues (women, too) and even the ladies have long hair and carry rifles. It is only when women speak that you can start to tell them apart. Even today, you see high school and college age students wear Che T-shirts. He was a romantic hero of his time, fighting a revolutionary war in the jungle. And there the story remains, as from this Che, we can’t quite grasp the man or the myth, just the situation of rebellion. Copyright 2009 Marie Asner