I waited a long time and was really looking forward to seeing Che. Unfortunately, I found most of Part One disappointing; the first hour and a half is boring and hard to follow. The main problem is that it keeps skipping back and forth from past to future, rather than just telling a cohesive story. Just when the guerrilla warfare stuff starts to get interesting, the film shifts to Che at the United Nations or Che being interviewed, or worse, irritating voice over of the interview WHILE the action scene is taking place. And it also keeps shifting from color to black and white. All of that is way too artsy fartsy for a biography of a revolutionary. Also, the scenes are too short. There must be a million scenes in this movie. They say a couple of words and then we are somewhere else and something else is happening. It's almost like the scenes are flash cards that we are suppose to keep up with, but since those of us who don't speak Spanish have to concentrate on the subtitles as well, there is simply too much going on too rapidly to grasp the entire picture. It's exhausting and unfulfilling. That kind of direction bugs me when Oliver Stone does it and it also bugs me here. It makes the movie feel like a documentary, but there are already some fine documentaries out there about Che. I was expected an engrossing war movie instead. I couldn't relate to Benicio Del-Toro's portrayal of Che because he's never on camera more than about thirty seconds at a time. He says something or does something and then we are sent somewhere else where he's saying and doing something else. We never get the chance to meet the man that way. And boy do they bleed the close up shots of him sucking on a cigar for all they're worth. There isn't much emotion expressed by any of the characters; I would think, living out there in the jungle with bullets constantly whizzing by, emotions would flare like fireworks. Instead everything is spoken dead pan like a puppet show, which is also exhausting to watch. Finally, during the last twenty or so minutes, the jumping around stops and the film concentrates on one battle for a while, picking up the pace. I think you will enjoy this movie a lot more if you understand the Spanish because then you won't have to work so hard to keep up with what's happening.
Review of Che: Part One
