Che!

With more than it's fair share of wooden acting 'Che!' seems doomed from the word go.

Omar Shariff attempts to breathe life into his overtly asthmatic portrayal of the revolutionary icon, Ernesto Che Guevaro, but is held back by the sheer lack of factual references. Jack Palance portrays Fidel Castro, in a manner that could almost have been written by the US government, as a man not able to fully think things through for himself. The film portrays the July 26th movement as an inept band of unwashed desperados who want to take over Cuba, but with only sheer luck, & government ineptitude, helping them to ultimately win through.

Covering the period of time from Che's first arrival on Cuban soil in 1956 until his Bolivian death in 1967, 'Che!' struggles with both poor screenplay and locations, but still trys to maintain a sense of purpose throughout. It could have been so much better. The political oppression that led to the overthrow of the Batista regime is totally glossed over & the rebels life, in the Sierra Madre, is portrayed as almost luxurious with Batista's troops wandering around waiting to be shot. Constant monologues, as a means to link scenes, prove to be more irritating than useful, and you find yourself wishing for the what little action there is to resume.

The film truly dies when Guevara leaves Cuba for Bolivia, with Shariff becoming more asthmatic and psychotic by the minute, until his ultimate capture in the mountains and his eventual murder in the backroom of La Higuera's village schoolhouse.

Any half decent film director would probably relish the chance to make a bio-pic of the legend that is Che Guevara. Che is an icon who deserves to have a film biography worthy of his legend, in the same manner of the bio-pics of Chaplin, Gandhi, Biko, Morrison etc.

It was brave of the makers of this film to release it in 1969 when the U.S. war against Communist North Vietnam still raged. It does depict a **failed** attempt to foment revolution in the Third World and on balance it is a negative portrayal of a professional revolutionary. Given the times, any depiction of Guevara and Fidel Castro showing them as human was a bold move.

In the U.S. most publicity has been garnered by Castro's bitterest enemies (those wonderful folks who brought you the **Elian** affair). Fidel has his supporters here, and around the world, also. Many of them seem to have posted comments at this site. The title of this movie is "Che!", not "Fidel!". Naturally, Castro's role will be a secondary one, a decision Castro's supporters seem unable to forgive.

Everyone knows how the story ends, and that is where the movie starts, with Che Guevara's body being transported by helicopter down from the one-room schoolhouse where he was apparently executed after being wounded and captured by an elite unit of the Bolivian Army. It's a strikingly beautiful, almost elegiac shot with the slopes of the Andes stretching to the horizon in the background. The movie proceeds in a semi-documentary style, the story told in flashbacks by Guevara's old Comrades (and some old enemies). Some of the Comrades, visibly aged, give their interviews from prison cells.

While Guevara's early life in Argentina isn't depicted, there is a soundless, striking scene early in the film of Cuban women protesting the dictatorial Battista regime, only to be massacred by Cuban soldiers ("We heard you calling, Cuba and we came...") that well explains what motivated young Ernesto and other youths from Latin America's upper classes to join the Cuban revolutionaries. From there we trace Che's transformation from idealistic medical graduate to hardened guerrilla fighter--summed up in a moment when in the heat of battle he picks up a rifle and leaves his doctor's kit on the ground.

I also disagree with the many criticisms of the portrayal of Fidel Castro by Jack Palance. Palance's movie career was distinctly on the down slope when he accepted the part, but he always had **macho**. Here he captured the 6'4" Castro's dominating physical presence in a land of mostly short statured people.

It is a real pity that this motion picture has completely disappeared. There is not a commercial version of it available anywhere. In the future, perhaps after Omar Sharif has died, this portrait of one of the twentieth century's most charismatic figures will be recognized as the rare achievement it is.

If you're looking for an accurate portrayal of Che Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary who helped aid Fidel Castro in his bid for power, you'd better read up on Cuban history or even type in his name on a search engine (you ARE on the Internet, after all).

But whatever you do, DO NOT WATCH "CHE!".

Unless, of course, you just want a good laugh.

All the reviewers of the time (and moviegoers) gave "Che!" their vote for worst film of the decade. And no wonder; have you seen this travesty? Its facts are tenuous at best, Sharif is even unconvincing as a corpse and as for Palance's Fidel Catsro imitation....

Like I said, if you want a good laugh.

It's like watching a co-production between The Learning Channel and Mad Magazine.

One star.

I wonder if Palance can do W. C. Fields, too?

Richard Fleischer's biopic about the eponymous Argentinian revolutionary has been widely known as one of the biggest embarrassments in cinema history. Watching "Che!", I didn't interpret it as a particularly bad movie. What it is: extremely corny. As I understand it, the movie is historically accurate. It's just that, aside from all the overacting, Omar Sharif as Che Guevara looks silly and Jack Palance as Fidel Castro always looks as if he's about to fall asleep. In fact, Fidel adopts Che's comments as his own, just like Daffy Duck does with Porky Pig's suggestion in "Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century"! There has been news of Steven Soderbergh's upcoming biopic about Che Guevara, with Benicio Del Toro playing the role. It'll probably come out better than this one. This mostly functions as an example of a movie intended as serious coming out really funny. Worth seeing for that.

Also starring Cesare Danova (Mayor Carmine in "Animal House"), Woody Strode and Barbara Luna.

This film was almost hooted into oblivion by the critics at the time of its release, so when I saw it on one of the Cinemax channels last night, I was surprised that it wasn't much worse. A few months ago I saw the highly acclaimed docudrama on Fidel on Showtime, and this film, while not as good as the Showtime drama, is not all that much worse either.

First the bad stuff. Jack Palance's portrayal of Fidel Castro must rank as one of the worst performances ever to appear on screen. During the first half of the film, he spends most of the time rolling a lit cigar around in his mouth and making weird facial grimaces, most of which he seems to have forgotten by the second half. Moreover, he makes Castro come across as a dim-witted doofus who is always helped to see the right course by the brilliant Che, rather than portraying Castro as the brilliant strategist and tactician he was. Secondly, although the film is in English, much of the spoken dialogue sounds like a dubbed movie. Maybe that's because one of the principal supporting actors is Italian.

That having been said, the film's history is, quite surprisingly, fairly accurate. It accurately depicts how Castro's forces were almost completely wiped out after the arrival from Mexico, and Castro was left with a force numbering less than twenty. Nevertheless, he survives and gradually wins the support of the peasants, so that eventually he has a guerrilla force numbering in the thousands. The fact that Guevara was unable to pull off the same feat in Bolivia, due largely to his own megalomania that prevented his listening to the Bolivian peasants, is accurately portrayed as well. This isn't available on video and isn't likely to come to a theater, so you can probably see it only on cable. If it comes along, it's worth a watch.