The Worst Film Ever

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This movie is a one sided whitewash that portrays Che Guevara as some Christ like figure. Its a terrible insult to anyone who lost friends or relatives in Castro's concentration camps at the hands of Guevara. The reviewer who gave it 5 stars should go read a history book.Here are some actual quotes from the beneficent Che that didn't make the movie:"What we affirm is that we must proceed along the path of liberation even if this costs millions of atomic victims." (Referring to Soviet atomic missiles pointed at the US.)"We must eliminate all newspapers; we cannot make a revolution with free press.""Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy."Clearly Che would've made a fine Nazi. What's next Soderbergh? a biopic about the happy art lover Hermann Goering?It's disgraceful not to mention dangerous when violent murderous people are celebrated.

Any biopic on the life of Ernest "Che" Guevara is going to provoke controversy and inevitable interest in the subject matter. He was one of the most recognizable figures of the latter half of the 20th century world stage, and his legacy is ripe fruit for dissection in the film format.Unfortunately, "Che: Part One" really struggles in the content and pacing areas. Much of the film jumps back and forth between two time periods, which isn't bad in itself, but the combination of the two often feels inadequate when the main plot line of the revolution in Cuba is so lacking. As other reviewers have noted, much of the film is of the rebel army moving through the jungle and encountering Batista's forces in tense firefights and standoffs. Very little of Che is explored as an individual, but rather is understated by both Del Toro and the filmmakers, preferring to focus on his role as a leader, doctor, and guerilla. As a result, the viewer leaves with very little knowledge gained besides from what we already know about him, via his command decisions in the field, his relationship with the soldados and country people, and his speeches at the UN. This is not an intimate, inside view of Guevara, but a spectacle of the humanity of the uprising in Cuba and the bond between the guerillas.The story-telling is very straight forward, and for 2 and a half hours the viewer is treated to an almost "fly on the wall" perspective of the events, with a mostly static, mounted camera giving a majority of wide-shots. There are little close-ups and sparse editing. It is all very methodical and almost minimalistic in its approach. The film is very dry in its treatment of the historical subject matter, although saying this would also disservice the good acting chemistry between the actors, who all give very naturalistic performances. The atmosphere created through these elements and the fantastic cinematography are mostly what drives the film forward.While it definitely drags in the middle, the film makes up for it towards the end with an exciting ending detailing the Battle for Santa Clara. The optimism as the revolution finally comes to a head in the finale leaves the film ending on a high note, and I was eager to see Part 2 and the conclusion of this story.Although much material is left out, subject matter that would have shown Che having to make difficult/personal/challenging decisions as he and his compatriots seek to change their world for the better would have been welcome. As it stands, this is a faithful, but not entirely satisfying account of "The Argentine".

This first part of Ernesto Guevara biopic can be watched on its own. In fact, having watched also the second part, I must confess I had rather stopped with the first installment.Ernesto Guevara led a very intense and adventurous life. There is an excellent film about his formative years (The motorcycle diaries) which details how Guevara got to know about the miseries of the South American continent and decided to do something to re-dress the injustice.In this movie we lack any information about the idealistic background that moved Guevara. The style is very documentary-like and detached. In fact, even too detached. The main part of film is in colour, showing Guevara reaching Cuba in 1956 with Fidel Castro and the other revolutionaries and fighting their way to Havana. Also in colour is a short flashback in Mexico, with Guevara and Castro meeting the first time.Interspersed in the movie are grainy, black & white scenes about Guevara 1964 trip to the UN. These scenes are very annoying for those who watch the film in the original version (in Spanish), and understand both English and Spanish. Guevara is interviewed in English, all questions are translated in English and he answers in Spanish, making the whole process unbearably dull.Sadly, also the long guerrilla part of the movie is equally unexciting. Obviously, even guerrilla fighters must have some dull moments in their life, but here it looks like they have nothing else. Given the documentary-style, we are shown countless scenes of the long march through the island, the most (and only) dramatic moment being the taking of Santa Clara.Considering the events depicted the major political overturning and the years of fighting spent by Guevara and his companions, the result is sorely lacking drama and tension. Benicio Del Toro does a good job, playing the part without any fanatic idealism, but rather with a human, melancholic side. Unfortunately he is not enough to make the movie raise from fake documentary into compelling biopic Disappointing.P.S. big mistake morphing what is perhaps the most famous photo of Guevara into a quasi-resemblance with Del Toro...

Listen: I LIKE ERNESTO GUEVARA. I LIKE ALL THE ACTORS. I LIKE SODEBERBERG.So why was this movie so absolutely, completely awful? Ever seen a movie over four hours long where at the end you feel like you know NOTHING about the hero? Ever seen a movie that plods along so slowly that you're begging for it to end... and yet despite all the time and detail, so much is still so inexplicable? If you are a fan or Che or revolutionary politics, go see The Motorcycle Diaries; Che comes across as young, brash, vibrant, idealistic, fun... you feel you know him.This movie, I'm afraid, is essentially retelling, page by awful page, the complete diary of Ernesto Guevara over a period of many years, without bothering to edit, explain, highlight or detail any one page over another. The tedious Marxist verbiage is repeated line for line as Che explains to one comrade or another the essence of the armed struggle; the long, slow daily boring grind of what its like to hide out in the jungle for months at a time is lovingly recreated...This movie needed an EDITOR!!!! Some SNAPPY DIALOGUE!!!! A DECENT SCORE!!! I apologize to all the Che fans out there who probably feel this endless tripe was a loving recreation of his life... but it wasn't... it was merely as exciting as if Steven Soderberg stood in your living room for five hours and READ you Che's diary, in a flat, even monotone.That's how boring it was. Using the same technique, you could turn the greatest stories ever told into unwatchable muck. The truth is that diaries are not good stories, by themselves. You have to figure out which are the exciting parts and which aren't. You have to punch up the dialog a bit beyond the "Then I told my comrade that the revolutionary struggle begins with the armed struggle, that the people cannot support us without understanding the nature of the Marxist dialectic through the viewpoint of a semi-feudal dictatorship...blah blah..." Listen, I KNOW Che was a lot more interesting that that. But sadly Soderberg doesn't bring him out... he hides him.You watch helplessly as Che and his revolutionary brothers in the second movie slowly starve to death as they hide in the jungle, forgetting, apparently, that to have an armed struggle you have to occasionally meet up with other people to struggle with. In retrospect, Che's entire Bolivian foray was probably the worst revolutionary decision ever made, and virtually suicidal; to enter a foreign country, hide in the vast jungle and then expect that somehow you will get the people in the cities, in industry, and on the farms to all join you and your foreign revolutionary brethren from Cuba and Panama and France and England ... but enough on Che's mistakes; let's get back to Soderbergs.The music was simply awful. Long irritating passages of near random noise just got in the way of what little development and action that might be occurring on screen.The dialog was similarly inept. Although better in the first movie, by the time the second rolls around, what little dialog there is is exceptionally wooden.Lastly, about two and a half hours of this movie should never have made it off the cutting room floor. We just didn't need to see the endless trekking through the jungle. The unbelievably slow buildups to most actual action could have been cut in half.Why did Matt Damon show up as a local village elder for a scene lasting under sixty seconds? That annoyed me.I would love to see a good movie about Che that really brings out the man behind the myth. How can you possibly, as Che II does, never mention except once that Che had a wife and five children? Because I really would like to a great movie about Che, and The Motorcycle Diaries would make a good start. I'd pay to see The Motorcycle Diaries Part II and Part III.But Soderberg's Che? Sadly, he comes across as nothing more than the icon we already know... a black and white image, easily silk-screened onto T-shirts.You learn nothing else. In five hours.