Flick Review: "Che"

PJM: "Will the Real Che Guevara Please Stand Up?", by Henry Gomez

In the movie Che, Puerto Rican actor Benicio del Toro plays an Argentine thrill seeker-cum-murderer who helped turn Cuba into a Stalinist state. That Argentine was Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, better known as “Che.” The movie is actually two films that total just under four and a half hours. Yet despite those 263 minutes of celluloid, important aspects of Guevara’s personality and deeds are omitted. Things like, you know, the truth.

There’s a bit of poetic justice when a man who indiscriminately killed others in order to impose a system devoid of capitalism is now the world’s greatest t-shirt salesman.

Unfortunately, Guevara is also venerated in Hollywood, thus explaining the reported $60 million cost to make Steven Soderbergh’s bore fest of a hagiography. The cop-out used by Soderbergh and del Toro to justify this marathon of an abomination is that it’s the story of a “complex” historical figure living in “complex” times; his desired ends justified what are normally unjustifiable means. Yet since the film’s opening on December 12, 2008, to date it has recovered a measly $922,347 in the U.S. As such, the movie Che bears one important similarity to the real Che; it’s highly celebrated by some even though it’s a complete failure.

Despite the considerable mythology built up around his image, the real Guevara was a bumbler who never accomplished anything except as Fidel Castro’s wing man and executioner during the Cuban insurrection of the late 50s. Even there, the Castro propaganda machine embellished his greatest “victory.”

Guevara’s lackluster record began as a young man when he enrolled in medical school. Historians can find no concrete evidence of him ever obtaining a degree and he certainly never practiced medicine. One of Guevara’s fellow rebels who fought alongside him told me Guevara only had a cursory knowledge of medicine. When Castro came to power in 1959, Guevara made a fool of himself as Cuba’s “economics minister.” Later, Guevara failed dismally in his attempts to launch insurrections in the Congo and Bolivia, where he ultimately met his demise in 1967. Guevara was also, by all accounts, a lousy husband and father.

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