Customer Reviews

Che - AKA Che Guevara

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

CHE as written, directed, and produced by Josh Evans is an amateurish attempt to present the life of one of the more interesting revolutionary figures of the 20th century - Ernesto 'Che' Guevarade la Serna, the Argentinean physician who searched for meaning in his view of the world and joined Fidel Castro in overthrowing the dictatorship of Cuba. Despite the presence of the fine actor Eduardo Noriega in the title role and Sonia Braga in a cameo role as Celia, Che's mother, the film is plagued by simplistic dialogue, lack of momentum, choppy editing, and a large cast that would have been a bit more credible had the film been shot in Spanish - the language of all of the actors. Josh Evans provides no insights as to the person of Che or his motivations, but instead relies on the viewer's knowledge of the period to provide the missing lapses in story line. And while many may feel that Che was the more important force in the idealism of the revolution than the leader Fidel Castro, it is doubtful that Castro was as tepid and uninspiring a figure as actor Enrico Lo Verso and the pathetic script make him appear.

With the 'other CHE' of Steven Soderbergh with Benicio Del Toro and a stellar cast due for release soon, it is not surprising that this amateurish film was released direct to DVD. The story and the actors deserve better treatment. Grady Harp, August 08

I am giving this movie four stars because it is a three star movie by itself, FIVE stars if you watch it AFTER watching the better "Motorcycle Diaries". "Diaries" fleshes out Che the person, while "Che" takes up almost exactly at the point in Che's life where "Diaries" left off. "Che" is essentially a lifeless factual biography unless you have been given the persona of its subject, as Motorcycle Diaries does so well (it is a 5 star movie by itself!) Watching the factual portrayal of Che's latter life is like reading a dry history textbook without any pictures or illustrations, only worse. When given the personality of the historical figured portrayed coupled with what motivated him, the biopic comes alive.

Watch them together, or don't watch this movie at all.

This DVD is way to short to deal with Che's Biography, so it resorts to a few episodes of his fighting days in the Sierra Maestre and his untimely
end in Bolivia. It describes it's interaction with his Comrades:
Disziplinary actions, ideological discussions, dealing with captured enemy soldiers, with the civil population, his plight as a doctor and philosophical dialogs with Fidel. There are a lot of battlescenes in this DVD, but not in a Rambo style, more like displaying the tragedy and sadness of human struggle. There is a beautyful scene with a peasant women, played by Sonia Braga, talking to Che. It is being rumored, that Sonia Braga wanted a chance to talk to Che, like She would have done in real life. A wonderful and passionate speach, I might say.
I would have given this movie 5 stars, if it would have been at least 8 hours long, like a miniseries, without using the flash-back style.
Something I still desire to see. So it's 4/5 stars.

I've read reviews on this film before purchasing it and since most of them have been negative, I've passed on the film numerous times. Thankfully I decided to give it a chance one day and make up my own mind about it. What I found was not a great film but not a horrible film either. I mean hasn't Soderbergh's film Che also got mixed reviews? I know people who didn't care for that one either. I personally think Soderbergh's was a more complete and solid take on Che's revolutionary life. But I wouldn't necessarily discredit Josh Evans' contibution.

So what if Eduardo Noriega is a handsome guy I mean I feel he did his best to play the part as honestly and convincingly as he can. I find him to be a good actor who has taken on many great roles in the past.

Overall, this was not a disappointing film for me and sometimes I think it's hard to satisfy these Che fanatics who are quite anal about anything that deals with communism. To break it down more evenly, I think Che himself must be rolling over in his grave knowing that the more prominent films made on his life are financed by the good ol' USA.

U know what, I'll give this one a 5 stars rating.

this is really bad! The actor looks way more like Pau Gasol than Che and he sounds like Pao Gasol also. It's also in English, which is really authentic since Che spoke Spanish!This is a very weak movie and you are WAY better off (can't stress that enough) getting the 2008 film Che starring Benicio Del Toro. That film was amazing. You will regret it if you get this movie as I did so save your time unless you like to laugh at poorly put together films.

Having seen the movie, "Fidel," we get a totally different Che, than the one in that movie. In "Fidel," Castro is a kindly ideological revolutionary while Che is his ruthless hatchet man, killing anyone one comes in his way, and forcing Castro to accept communism. In this movie Castro is the mean killer. Che is the likable overly compassionate doctor, trying to bring a revolution to Cuba while fighting his asthma and randomly taking bullets because he hasn't read his own book. The actor who played Fidel looked nothing like him, well he did have a beard. The movie starts out in Bolivia 1967 with Che being captured near the end of his life. We then flashback to the revolution and pre-revolution times. The next thing we know Che is sitting in a chair smoking a cigar giving an interview to some white bread chick in Havana, post revolution. During the interview we flashback again to the revolution. During the flashbacks, we have duel scenes when the movie flashes ahead slightly during the flashback, such as when he meets a girl, he is talking to her for the first time, and then it flashes ahead to when they make love, then back to the conversation, ahead to loving making etc. OW! my head hurts, make them stop! Please stop editing films on acid.

The movie is pro Che, or even anti-American, but then so is world history when told outside of the U.S. One of my right wing friends would chide me "Che was a weenie." This movie portrays Che as a weenie, someone who brings revolution in spite of himself. Not worth the view.

On more than one occasion I have mentioned that "Che" Guevara, as icon and legend, despite his left Stalinist politics (at best) and the political gulf that separated him from those who fought, and fight, under the banner of Leon Trotsky and the Fourth International, was, and is, a justifiably appealing revolutionary militant for the world's youth to consider. A number of films have come out over the years that portray one or another aspect of the "Che" personality. Here the central thrust of the film is the creation of "Che" as a revolutionary cadre in the guerilla warfare movement that dominated much of the radical political action of the 1960s, in the wake of the success and survival of the Cuban revolution in the face of American Yankee imperialism.

This little film, really a docu-drama since there is an abundance of black and white newsreel film footage to set the story line throughout most of the 1950s, goes, up close and personal, into the transformation of the Argentine free spirit and free booter. In short, from pre-"Che" of the "Motorcycle Chronicles" period into a commandant of the Second Front in the Fidel and Raul Castro-led rural insurgence against the hated dictator (except in Miami) Batista.

In that sense it almost does not work. Eduardo Noriega is "Che" in his mannerisms, his good and manly looks, and in his earnestness (no pun intended) to free the Americas of the Yankee beast. However, the film is saved when "Che" gets to show more aspects of his personality when he is being interviewed by an American reporter in the post-victory period. And also by his determination to end up where he started, as a guerrilla fighter extraordinaire fighting against the world's injustices. And an enemy's bullet.

That, my friends, today is refreshingly appealing. That said, though "Che" deserved a better fate that to be caught out in the bush in Bolivia. And here is where the irony (and the political differences) between us comes in. What the hell was he doing in the Bolivian bush, of all places in Bolivia when they was a working class (mainly miners) who had a history of extreme militancy and readiness to do class battles against the state (and have done so since then). "Che", mainly deserves his status as icon, as a personal exemplar, but a whole generation of militants in Latin America and elsewhere got torn up based on that wrong strategic assumption. That is the real lesson of the film.

I picked up the film expecting a little more than what I got, but all in all I would recommend it to someone interested in Che (definitely not the top of my list though.)

The dialogue of the film was decently well written and had the acting to match. The action sequences are interesting and don't leave you with that "infallible Che" feeling some films and texts give the guerrilla. You see the man's errors and triumph's. The film is obviously slanted pro-Che which, I don't necessarily have a problem with. However, the film doesn't show any of the controversial happenings in Che's life which, diminishes the films validity in my opinion. Furthermore, the film gives almost no time showing Che in post-revolution Cuba (probably why the more controversial moments are left out). The ripping pace brings you from the Cuban revolution to Bolivia in about two or three scenes.

All the above errors are almost tolerable if it wasn't for the film's...well...filming! The majority of the movie feels like it's being recorded with a hand-held, low-cost, camera. The footage was then edited by an undergraduate film student using his new macbook. My second biggest gripe with the film is the language. I'm not a native Spanish speaker but, even I was turned off by the fact the whole cast was nothing but Hispanics speaking English with a Spanish accent.

In short, if your interested in the life of Che there are many more valuable works that dramatize the guerrilla's life (The Motorcycle Diaries and Che: Parts I & II). This is an incomplete story with poor filming to put the icing on the cake. The story is quite interesting though and the action/dialogue will keep watching.

I did not like this movie. Che speaking in english? What the hell? Is not culturally right

Attempt to portray and understand South American revolutionary legend Che Guevara. I think the world has always been fascinated about a young man, a promising doctor, who leaves his native Argentina in order to fight guerilla wars in Guatemala, Cuba, Bolivia and other parts of South and Central America. But this film did not manage to explain how can a young doctor turn into a "freedom" fighter willing and ready to kill in the name of self preservation and against oppression of the poor.

If you are going to see this film, I recommend you see "Motorcycle Diaries" first that can at least give one some idea about this young man's motivation to turn his promising future into something very different.

Che's early death makes him a legend. But was he a hero? If that was the case, this film did not convince me so. Also, it would have been better if the film was made in Spanish. Too many actors with bad accents does not do this film any service.