Reviews

This new section is for all of the reviews of the movies of Edgar Ramirez

CHE ( THE ARGENTINE - GUERRILLA)

“Hey, they brought food!” Really, there could’ve been no sweeter words to hear at the halfway point of Che Steven Soderbergh’s tribute to the 20th century’s most photogenic revolutionary will be released in North America — provided that a distributor will pony up the estimated $8 to $10 million for the rights for a Spanish-language epic that’s nearer in its politics and sensibility to a Peter Watkins movie than any Hollywood biopic — this first part will be called The Argentine. The second part — which runs another two-hours-plus — will be Guerilla.

But “Che” was what it read on the stickers on the bags in the lobby that arrived at intermission. Inside each was a bottle of water, a small Kit Kat bar and a sandwich on white bread — a proletariat feast! The critics munched excitedly — surely such abundance awaits us when we are able to live in that workers’ paradise we were promised. We also deserved a reward after enduring the challenges posed by The Argentine, which juxtaposes glimpses of Guevara in his early career and in his visit to the United Nations in New York in 1964 with his grueling experiences during the Cuban Revolutionary War, ending with the attack on Santa Clara. A dense and complex barrage of facts, faces and places, it can feel like sitting through a history lecture for a course you’re doomed to fail.
on Wednesday night. By then, the experience was already entering its fourth hour, with the film’s first stretch of two hours and 10 minutes following the 90 minutes spent in line to make sure I could get into the festival’s most widely anticipated title. When

But the first part very much makes the second part, as the determined and ultimately triumphant tone of The Argentine gives way to something more fatalistic and pessimistic in Guerilla, which concentrates on Guevara’s efforts to replicate his earlier revolution in Bolivia. In place of the community spirit of the Cuban scenes comes a lonelier portrait of an idealist who grows increasingly unable to protect or direct his comrades. With the Bolivian people rejecting him as a foreigner and the army edging closer (with the help of some shadowy US military “advisers”), Che wastes away in the jungle, crippled by the inhuman conditions and his lifelong struggle with asthma.

As Che, Benicio Del Toro is convincing and unsentimental — like the film around him, Del Toro defines the quality of Guevara’s character by emphasizing his actions over his words. That gives the film an uncommonly physical sense of presence and an urgency even in the face of the demands it places on viewers, which Variety’s Todd McCarthy deemed grave enough to consider the movie a “commercial impossibility.” Whether Soderbergh’s two-fer really revealed much about Guevara — which you might’ve expected given the project’s girth — was another topic of debate among critics as they stumbled out of the theatre. But one thing’s for certain: the revolution will come with a free sandwich.

‘Vantage Point’

CW grade: 3 out of 4
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sequences of intense violence and action, some disturbing images and brief strong language.
Cast: Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Studio: Sony

Sometimes all you’re looking for at the movie theater is a ripping good yarn, which is precisely what “Vantage Point” delivers.

Casting prime-time television castaway Matthew Fox is appropriate, since labyrinthine thrillers like “Lost” (and, to a lesser extent, “24”) have conditioned audiences to absorb new characters and download backstories on the fly. You’ll need that skill for “Point,” which recounts an assassination attempt from various viewpoints and alters our perspective as it unfurls.

Here’s what we think we know. U.S. President Ashton (William Hurt), while attending an antiterrorism summit in Spain, takes two bullets to the chest. Secret -Service agents, led by Fox and Dennis Quaid, scramble to secure the fallen world leader and scour the scattering crowd for clues. Before they get their bearings, however, an explosion rocks the open-air court that housed the gathering and escalates the situation from mild melee to outright chaos.

Pay attention, but don’t worry if you miss a detail or two because “Point” will show you the assassination and ensuing bomb blasts from eight different perspectives. We follow an American tourist (Forest Whitaker) whose handheld video camera might have recorded terrorist activity. We learn more about Thomas Barnes (Quaid), a veteran Secret Service agent who already took a bullet for Ashton during a previous assassination attempt and hasn’t quite readjusted to being back on the presidential beat. We wonder if the Spanish man (Edgar Ramirez) claiming to be a cop is telling the truth or covering up a larger plot. To its credit, “Point” careers to a bombastic conclusion right before the rewinding device grows tiresome.

A couple of feature-film first-times keep “Point” on its fast track. Screenwriter Barry Levy builds a big-picture story that plays off current international fears (and anti-American hostilities) without overdosing on political psychobabble. He also includes the right amount of personal drama for our supporting characters so we’re interested to see how it factors into the larger puzzle.

Director Pete Travis – not to be confused with hackneyed “Rolling Stone” film critic Peter Travers – follows his writer’s lead, -striking a balance between intelligent drama and full-blown crowd-pleaser. Whitaker keeps pace for a riveting foot race with escaping terrorists. Later, a rousing car chase takes its cues from the “Bourne” franchise to place us in the passenger’s seat next to Quaid as he races through downtown Salamenca. There’s action aplenty, but Oscar winners (Whitaker, Hurt) and nominees (Sigourney Weaver) populating the ensemble don’t have to feel as if they’re slumming for the combat paycheck. This thriller peppers its real-time terror plot with contemporary political commentary, but not enough to distract from its main goal of simply -entertaining.

Movies reviewed and rated by Sean O’Connell,
Arts & Entertainment Editor.