Che

Review

Che, which runs about four and a half hours, chronicles the two big revolutionary battles in the life of Che Guevara (Benicio Del Toro): Part One is Cuba (cigars for everybody), Part Two Bolivia (last cigars for everybody). As movie directors go, Steven Soderbergh is an intellectual, which means that when he has a brainy conception for a film, he has a hard time letting it go�or ringing variations on it, testing it. His notion here is to show you temporally, tactilely, how grueling it is to slog through a jungle and violently overthrow an unjust government; for Che it was even harder because (a) he had terrible asthma, and (b) he insisted on toting books with him to teach his soldiers (who had to be literate) about the historic struggles of the proletariat. Che is an impressive physical feat, but especially in the second part, which gives you day after day of rebels being killed and indigenous poor people not joining the good fight, you start to look forward to Che getting riddled by bullets. The whole movie is a forced march. — David Edelstein

Q&A

Director Stephen Soderbergh will participate in a Q&A session following the 7pm screening on 12/12.