TheLittleSongbird To me, Che! is not one of the worst films of the 60s but it is one of the most disappointing, almost every criticism directed at it I agree with. It gets a few plus points for its beautiful scenic landscapes, stirringly rich music and Sid Haig giving a performance of fiery dignity. Unfortunately everything else is a failure.Well actually the photography was not so bad, it actually looked decent and professional, but it could have been more expansive to give the scenery more character and it doesn't really shake off the 60s TV series look. In the acting stakes only Haig impressed, the rest of the supporting cast have hardly anything to work with and some like Robert Loggia spend their screen time looking annoyed. Omar Sharif's lead performance often is very stiff and a lot of the time he is either emotionless or perplexed. To give credit where he's due, he actually looks the part. Which is more than can be said for Jack Palance, who basically looks like Jack Palance with a fake nose and beard and glasses. His performance is a possible career-worst(even worse than that in Outlaw of Gor), being little more than a buffoonish caricature, chewing the scenery to shreds and I am sure that Fidel Castro in real life didn't behave like this much of an idiot.The way the characters are written is never compelling and they never come over as real people either, coming over instead as caricatures with the cast attempting and failing to give them life or realism. Che! also has one of the worst-written scripts I've heard in a while for a film, with the dialogue flow and delivery being so stilted that you can't be blamed if you thought dubbing was involved, the actual dialogue being very flowery and with no substance or subtlety at all. The dialogue and blatant and sometimes disturbing "gay" subtext(or what can be seen as such) in the scenes between Guevara and Castro is just embarrassing on the ear. The story is never involving, it feels very episodic and one-sided with a lot of padding, so much so that although the film is 96 minutes long it feels longer. The 4th wall talking into the camera "interviews" were randomly put in and completely misplaced, they seemed to only be there for filler and just confused the storytelling rather than added. The Bolivia segment has a little tension and truth, in an overall story that has very little of either, but only in spades and it's too late. At the end of the day it felt like there was no point in the film being made, it tries to cover a lot but says very little and we learn next to nothing about what made Che Guevara famous and also learn just as little about him as a person as well. Not helped by that the film while mostly one-sided didn't seem to make its mind as to whether we should feel sympathy for Guevara or not.All in all, not that dire but a miscalculated failure all the same that sees two wholly dependable actors giving very bad performances. 3/10 Bethany Cox

Lee Eisenberg Richard Fleischer's biopic about the eponymous Argentinian revolutionary has been widely known as one of the biggest embarrassments in cinema history. Watching "Che!", I didn't interpret it as a particularly bad movie. What it is: extremely corny. As I understand it, the movie is historically accurate. It's just that, aside from all the overacting, Omar Sharif as Che Guevara looks silly and Jack Palance as Fidel Castro always looks as if he's about to fall asleep. In fact, Fidel adopts Che's comments as his own, just like Daffy Duck does with Porky Pig's suggestion in "Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century"! There has been news of Steven Soderbergh's upcoming biopic about Che Guevara, with Benicio Del Toro playing the role. It'll probably come out better than this one. This mostly functions as an example of a movie intended as serious coming out really funny. Worth seeing for that.Also starring Cesare Danova (Mayor Carmine in "Animal House"), Woody Strode and Barbara Luna.

sol Superficial biographical flick about international revolutionary and Castro's second in command Che Guevara, Omar Sharif. The movie gives you the impression that if it wasn't for Che Fidel Castro, Jack Palance, would never have taken over Cuba in what's called the Great Peasant Revolution of 1959. Che, an Argentinian doctor and one-world revolutionary, did in fact land with Castro and his contingent of 82 men off the west coast of Cuba on December 2, 1956.After being ambushed by Batista's, the Cuban dictator, men only a dozen, including Che & Castro, survived. During the next two years in the Sierra Maestras mountains the dozen revolutionaries grew into the thousands. It was undoubtedly because of the leadership and knowledge of guerrilla tactics and warfare by Che that forced the besieged and defeated Batista to abandon his palace in Havana on New Years Eve 1959 and check out of the country. This left a victorious Castro & Co. to enter the capital city without as much as a shot being fired on New Years Day.The movie shows how Che became a ruthless and blood-thirsty disciplinarian to the troops. Che as a command-ante is shown without as much as flinching ordering the execution of traitors, many times in the movie doing it himself, that even his leader Fidel didn't have the heart to do. After the Castro take-over of Cuba Che held around the clock military trials and executions of former Batista political and military personal. This even shocked and outraged some of the most battle-hardened Cuban revolutionaries. Che's excuse for his cold-blooded policies was that if he didn't show the people that he was ridding the country of Bitista's war criminals they would do the job for him themselves. This would result in many innocent, far more then those proved guilty by his military tribunals, people ending up being slaughtered by rampaging mindless and vengeful mobs.The movie "Che" goes on to show that it was Che who gave Fidel Castro the idea of not only declaring himself a Marxist which outraged the United States Government and turned it against him but in establishing diplomatic and military relations with the Soviet Union. This lead to the 1961 fiasco, for the US and Free Cubans, known as "the Bay of Pigs". Were also show that it was Che who planted the idea in Fidel's head to invite the Soviet Union to use Cuba as a base for it's nuclear missiles. This irresponsible action, on Castro and the USSR's part, almost brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in the autumn of 1962.Feeling betrayed by his friend Fidel and his Soviet allies for backing down to the US during the Cuban Missile Crisis Che, calling Castro a Soviet dupe, decided to leave the safety of Cuba and go out in the dangerous hills and valleys of Bolivia to start a revolution of his own. Since in reality Che left for Bolivia in late 1966 or early 1967 the event, in the movie, of Che's break with Castro,in 1962, seems a bit premature.In Bolivia Che lost his revolutionary persona as well as his ability to rally peasants, like he did in Cuba ten years earlier, to his aid. Going against his own writings and principles about how a guerrilla/revolutionary war should be fought had Che's men, mostly Bolivian rebels, desert him because of his mindless and brutal tactics to whip up both support and recruits among the peasant population.The hard life as a guerrilla fighter coupled with his deteriorating asthmatic condition, smoking Cuban cigars didn't help Che's asthma either, took a heavy toll on Che's health. Fate eventually caught up with Che as well as the Bolivian army and on October 9, 1967 in an ambush at the Quebrada del Yuro ravine the life-long revolutionary was shot and captured. Later, on orders from the Bolivian high command, Che was executed as if he were just a common criminal not the man who's name became synonymous with world as well as local revolution over the last thirty five years.More of a curiosity piece then anything else "Che" has it's share of unintentional laughs. Omar Sharif in many of the battle and strenuous jungle mountain climbing scenes in the movie is heard breathing and wheezing, because of his asthma condition, like someone making an obscene phone-call. The final scene when Che's confronted by an elderly Bolivian peasant berating him about how his guerrilla actions in and around his village have caused his goats to cease from giving milk. The scene looks like something straight out of a Mystery Science 3000 parody of an unintentionally and hilariously funny movie. Jack Palance as Fidel Castro with his fake plastic nose and acting as if he'd be lost without Che makes the guy, Castro, look like a totally helpless dolt as well as alcoholic buffoon. Castro who seems to drink as many bottles of booze as the cigars that he smokes that it's a wonder that he's still around now; some forty after Che left him to run Cuba on his own! At the time of the movies release in the spring of 1969 there were plans by many Cuban/Americans to demonstrate in front of the movie-houses that were to be playing "Che". It wasn't until after word of mouth, as well as critics reviews, about how awful the film really was that it was decided that "Che" instead of ingratiating Castro's Cuba was in fact the United States revenge for it's defeat by Castro's army and militia at "the Bay of Pigs"!

Wizard-8 If you are determined to see CHE! no matter what, I highly suggest you first pick up and read a good book about the man, Fidel Castro, and the Cuban revolution itself. Otherwise, you'll be utterly confused. The movie starts with the rebel invasion of Cuba, without giving us any idea about what Che had been doing up to that point of time. (Like: Why was he convinced to follow Castro?) We also don't really see what the political situation was exactly like in Cuba at the time. (How can we understand the rebels if we don't know what they are fighting against?) The movie continues to be confusing by subsequently not making it clear just how the rebels were able to build in force after being almost completely wiped out... or just how exactly they were able to weaken the government forces... or how Che transformed from a weakling into a strong leader (it seems to happen overnight!)... or why exactly Che got tired of being in Cuba. The subsequent unfolding events do get somewhat clearer once Che gets to Bolivia and starts his doomed campaign there, but you still don't understand the man. And with Richard Fleischer at the helm - a director who was usually only as good as his script - the movie sinks deeper into badness. The fact that Fleischer shows a complete inablility to film action scenes is just the least of his problems.And talk about miscasting! Omar Sharif as Che?!? He looks understandably confused and cowed in the role - deadly for someone who was reportedly a charismatic and cunning leader. But his performance is brilliant next to that of Jack Palance. Palance is unbelievably goofy as Castro, who was a strong leader in his own right. Reports at the time of filming state that Palance asked that Castro's "buffoonery" in the script be changed. Apparently that didn't happen. I can imagine that Palance subsequently decided to take revenge by hamming things up, especially since he also stated to the press after filming that he regretted ever being involved in this production.