Movie Review

The Motorcycle Diaries

Hey, everybody! Come see this movie about a communist who helped Fidel Castro come to power, denied people their freedoms as today?s Cuba illustrates, and essentially hated the American way of life. You can tell that "The Motorcycle Diaries" isn't going to have a happy ending, even if it had an ending at all, considering that the entire movie is one long introduction that ends at the climax. According to historians, much of the life of Che Guevara has been edited for content, which no doubt was toned down even more for this movie. Only oddly enough, it is pretty endearing if you don't think too hard about the man this young kid becomes.

?Diaries? fashions itself as a road trip buddy comedy. Ernesto Guevara (Gael Garcia Bernal) is an Argentinean medical student in 1952. Instead of finishing his last semester at school, he, along with his bio-chemist friend Alberto (Rodrigo de la Serna) climb on to a broken down Norton 500 motorcycle and tour South America. The trip is meant to free the human spirit within them, which in young person terms means to find as many women as they can. Only they learn much more about the way of the land than they probably expect too.

They come across peasants and poverty stricken farmers muscled off of their land by the rich. They also experience such injustice firsthand as they are turned away for having no money. Even when Ernesto visits his very rich girlfriend, he is treated to the disconcerted eyes of her parents. One man who does help them is a doctor in Lima, who puts them on a boat to the San Pablo Leper Colony.

There is a choice presented at the end of this film. No longer is Ernesto thinking of becoming the doctor his family and he wanted him to be. He is now more confused and up in the air about the direction his life should take. As he says at the end of the film, "This story is not about heroic feats. It's about two lives running parallel for a while." One life is becoming a doctor, while the other is becoming a freedom fighter.

This film isn't about either one. Ernesto hasn't become the revolutionary or the doctor yet. Instead this is a coming of age story about a complex young man finding his idealism. You see the seeds of change and the humanitarian good nature and think that maybe this guy could have been more than what he became. Call it the Anakin Skywalker syndrome. Also call it a very charming performance by Gael Garcia Bernal. Bernal makes the movie come alive, showing an innocent, well-meaning, and untested youth with decent values and an eagerness to right what he thought was wrong.

He is also a very good straight man to Rodrigo de la Serna, a character seemingly here for comic relief. I really liked this character: he's a womanizer, a cheat, and he always seems to have a sketchy smile on his face, but you root for him because he is having such a good time with his life. The two participate in funny and playful bickering, but there is also chemistry between these two guys as they talk about women, careers, etc. Their ongoing motorcycle gags were also very funny.

There isn't much to take away from "The Motorcycle Diaries,? but it's a funny road movie, and also a good character study. But Bernal and de la Serna really make it work. They're both fantastic performers who deserve a little revolution of their own, by which I mean success in Hollywood.

Craig's Grade: B

A	10.9%
B	41.8%
C	31.8%
D	15.3%
F	0.3%