A revolutionary life

I saw the first part in theatres when it came out but never saw the second one. Decided to watch them both in a row as they are kind of a one big story. Got the double edition DVD at a bargain bin, but I'll still review them as separate pieces as that's how they were originally released.



Che: Part One (2008)

Not going to take any stance on the subject matter and how accurate the movie was. There are people who praise the guy and people who say he was nothing more than a murderer, so I'll leave it to just that. So the movie is very character driven and the revolutionary war is almost just a side plot while the movie focuses on the people. That's of course a great approach for a drama, but it also creates a bit of a dilemma. As the character is portrayed as quite one dimentional, pure righteous man who does no wrong and always comes up with a solution to a problem, it tends to get a bit boring. Sure he has his weakness in the form of medical condition, asthma, but he never gets any dilemmas, he never makes a wrong decicion and never needs to face the consequences. That's a huge part of making people more human. That aside, Benicio Del Toro does an amazing job at playing the man, brilliant performance. While the main character is quite one sided, luckily some of the supporting characters are a bit more versatile and create a lot more interesting moments than the main man himself. The story is quite a usual story about a small man rising to be larger than life. Steven Soderbergh's guerilla moviemaking style fits the movie surprisingly well and the mixed styles supported the story quite well. In the end it's a somewhat solid drama which at parts strugles to keep the interest up throughout.
69%



Che: Part Two (2008)

Where the first part was quite straight forward with a very one dimentional character, this is a bit different. Things don't go as planned and the character gets a bit more depth to it. The story continues where the first one ended, after the first war we follow Che to Bolivia to another revolutionary war. Things start over and at start I got a bit scared that this would be just like the first part, but luckily it manages to bring something new to the table in form of depth in the character. The cast is again quite brilliant and the style remains the same so nothing more to add to the first part. Good continuation to the story.
81%