It's not an elegant piece of filmmaking.
Comment
10/18/08
Che (2008)
62
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:93
Fresh:58
Rotten:35
Average Rating:6.2/10
Consensus: Though lengthy and at times plodding, Soderbergh's vision and Benicio Del Toro's understated performance ensure that Che always fascinates.
Theatrical Release:20-02-2009
Synopsis: November 26, 1956; led by Fidel Castro (Demian Bichir), a band of 80 rebels sails to Cuba. Among these young rebels is Argentine physician, Marxist, soldier, Ernesto "Che" Guevara (Benicio Del... [More]
Starring: Benicio Del Toro, Benjamin Bratt, Franka Potente, Lou Diamond Phillips
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Reviews for Che
Top CriticThis is very much a film of ideas.
05/28/08
One thing’s for certain: whether it’s a meditation on guerrilla warfare, on Che or on moviemaking itself, you’ve seen nothing like it and are unlikely to ever again.
02/20/09
The film is a series of skirmishes, betrayals, confrontations and dislocations that Soderbergh directs with a matter-of-fact understatement and real cinematographic artistry. Even major action scenes feel eerily authentic, never like a big movie.
11/04/08
The pity is [Soderbergh] was seduced by a sense of historical self-importance and forgot about his audience.
01/02/09
Rather infuriatingly, he completely skips over the most controversial era in Guevara's life -- when he was in power.
12/11/08
Che, the story of a failed revolutionary, also fails as a film.
01/23/09
Out-perversing Gus Van Sant’s Milk, Soderbergh makes a four-hour-plus biopic about a historical figure without providing a glimmer of charm or narrative coherence.
12/11/08
If Soderbergh's ambition was to make us feel just how dull it would be to a woods-dwelling communist guerrilla, he succeeded.
01/16/09
... two films and a unified work with each half mirroring, complementing and informing the other.
01/15/09
While Soderbergh and screenwriter Peter Buchman are ill-equipped to explain the Marxist motivations that drove Che Guevara to martyrdom, their film is an honest attempt to come to grips with a revolutionary despised in the mainstream media.
01/08/09
Mr. Soderbergh once again offers a master class in filmmaking. As history, though, Che is finally not epic but romance. It takes great care to be true to the factual record, but it is, nonetheless, a fairy tale.
12/12/08
Top CriticChe is by no means a breezy sit, but no matter what your politics, it's a bracing tonic in a season of flaccid Oscar bait.
12/08/08
The film's last chapter is arid yet breathtaking cinema, marked by despairing visuals and a climax that withers, not winds, to a close.
01/16/09
This isn't a biography -- it's a nature show where Guevara is the lion.
01/08/09
Great showcase for Benicio del Toro, of course, a wonderful actor who gives it his all. But Che, the T shirt hero of three generations, is a myth that so many today THINK Che stood for.
09/26/09
For all the movie’s narrative momentum, Che retains the air of a study exercise -- of an interest brilliantly explored. How else to explain one’s total flatness of feeling at the climax of each movie?
01/12/09
I do respect Steven Soderberg for taking on this film and giving us a great part one and for Del Toro’s performance alone.
01/20/09
It’s hard to know which scene, where the men are tired, hungry and ill-equipped, is more or less important than the others.
01/20/09
Del Toro's performance is fine and there are many strong moments (including some wonderful black and white footage of Che in New York) but the parts are better than the whole.
03/17/09
Latest News for Che
January 20, 2009:
click for trailer and trailer review 
More...
January 04, 2009:
Video Exclusive: Benicio del Toro talks Che and Wolf Man
Benicio Del Toro faced his greatest acting challenge when he took on the role of Ernesto "Che" Guevara for what would become a four-hour epic tale of the iconic revolutionary's... More...
December 09, 2008:
Trailer & Poster review
More...
December 08, 2008:
Roger Ebert Ranks 2008's 20 Best Films
December isn't even halfway over yet, and many of us have already had our fill of year-end lists -- but Roger Ebert's list of the 20 best films of 2008 is one worth making an... More...
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