Search - Che Part Two on DVD

Faithful depiction of Che Guevara's life in Bolivia which in

Tom Plum | Roswell, NM United States | 11/25/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Some decade or so ago, I read a book on Che Guevara such asThe great rebel; Che Guevara in Bolivia [by] Luis J. Gonzalez [and] Gustavo A. Sanchez Salazar. Translated from the Spanish by Helen R. Lane on his South American military campaign and there seem to be a number of accounts, it told how he looked going incognito, in disguise into Bolivia with pictures, it showed that a major obstacle to Che's campaign in South America were largely the elements, high altitudes, they are in the land of the Andes, the weather, jungle. The elements kicked the Rebels' rump and they had to live very raw in the wild. Also, it was amazing to see the same disguise from the book portrayed in the movie, it is exactly the same and the actor Benicio del Toro looks just like "El Che" in both 1 and 2. They were a guerilla army working in remote areas of the country in one of the most remote countries of the world. As far as this being an authentic portrayal of that situation and bearing that in mind, this movie is accurate and deserves, take your pick five or four stars. Films like "Braveheart" take a lot of poetic license to build up the central figure into a great hero. We do not see this here. I am removed from the situation and have read pro and anti Cuban books and have long monitored short wave radio propaganda coming out of the Caribean for both sides. The propaganda position coming out of the two Che movies should not surprise anyone who has ever spent time listening to Radio Habana. I would suggest however, one read the amazing book, Against All Hope: A Memoir of Life in Castro's Gulag by Armando Valladares. This is required reading for anyone studying Cuba on a serious basis. It is up to all of us to make judgements and to try to do so on the most truthful basis possible. Che part one is a better dramatic movie but I can not fault this one for staying with historic accuracy. I will let others sermonize on the pros and cons of these Marxist thinkers, my review is only for the movie. Che part one seems to be a straightaway propaganda type forum for the Castro/Communist side of Cuba. Che part two seems indeed different at portraying his life and I thought might have been based on some of the aforementioned books but apparently both movies credit their storyline to the diaries of Guevara."