Che Part 2 – Out on DVD now

This is the second part of Steven Soderbergh’s Che Guevara story, which begins in 1965 when Che (Del Toro) resigns from the Cuban government to lead the revolution in Bolivia.

Che tries to stir the local population into action with his small, underfed, under resourced and largely unsupported guerrilla movement. The Bolivian army decides to squash the revolution before it has even really taken off. Che begins to suffer from bad health brought on by the harsh conditions him and his troops are living in. Slowly the odds of victory for the rebels lengthen as their numbers are whittled down until Che himself faces the Bolivian army.

I feel that I’m going to repeat myself from my review of Che Part 1, yet again I was largely disappointed by the story of the semi mythical Guevara. Again there is a lot of talking in jungles, walking in jungles and plotting in jungles and the action only really steps up a pace at the end of the film but by then you feel like you have been dragged through too many episodes of Ray Mears survival programme although with fierce looking bearded rebels rather than Mr Mears.

Yet again I was left feeling like I missed the real motivation for why Che would choose to leave his wife and five children to live in the jungle…. I know it’s based on his story but I still felt that the bones of the Che story were lacking. I’m actually going to cut and paste something from my previous review as its still relevant:
‘The film looks great, and is well acted, (Del Toro totally dominates the screen as Che, and looks amazingly cool) but also it doesn’t really do anything, or go anywhere. I watched Che walk through the jungle, shooting, rebelling, deal with injustice treat people fairly and treat people medically.’ Its a real shame as it was obviously a labour of love for Del Toro.

I’m yet again, I'm sorry to say I'm disappointed.

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Cast:
Benicio Del Toro – Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara
Carlos Bardem – Moises Guevara
Demian Bichir – Fidel Castro
Joaquim de Almeida – President Rene Barrientos

To view the trailer click here