The Motorcycle Diaries

I never wore a Che t-shirt, never really had any particular opinion about him, and that sure hasn’t changed after seeing this movie. Walter Salles offers a pretty-enough travelogue of South America, and Gael Garcia Bernal presents a more-than-pretty-enough portrait of the revolutionist as a young doctor. In the early Fifties, Ernesto Guevara teams up with a slightly older, somewhat earthier biochemist friend, and they set off on an ancient and unreliable motorcycle for a ten thousand kilometer circuit of the continent that surrounds their native Argentina, to grasp the land and maybe some ladies along the way. After traversing Chile and Peru, they finally reach -- on foot -- a leper colony on the Amazon, where Che’s social conscience really kicks in. To me this film is hardly more than a fistful of picture postcards, with an unrevealing message on the back of each. Garcia Bernal is always pleasing to watch, but if you want to take a roadtrip with him, see Y Tu Mama Tambien instead. (2004, dvd, n.) *6* (MC-75, RT-83.)