A Missed Opportunity

The Miami Herald's movie critic Rene Rodriguez summarizes reviews of Steven Soderbergh's two-part Che Guevara epic, The Argentine and Guerrilla. One of the reviews Rodriguez mentions is a fine write-up in Variety. Variety recognizes the difficulties with a subject like Che:

It can’t necessarily be said that the film takes its protagonist’s point-of-view or reps an endorsement of his positions -- Soderbergh remains too far outside his subject for that -- but it does give such ample airing to communist ideological thinking -- and presents American and Latin American authorities so exclusively as cardboard mouthpieces of imperialism and abusive dictatorships, respectively -- that some conservative political commentators might work themselves into a lather over it. However, so few people will likely see the picture, at least in its current state, that there’s little chance it will have much cultural impact other than by the fact of its very existence.

Variety points out what Soderbergh left out of the movie -- no doubt so that he would not offend his leftist cronies, nor the cult of personality built-up around Che:

Oddly, “Che” seems more about denial of audience expectations and pleasure than it does about providing the intellectual and historical heft that would serve as a good alternative. Soderbergh withholds much in addition to dramatic modulation, narrative thrust and psychological insight: A feeling of revolutionary zeal, the literal transformation of Ernesto into Che, his marriages and family life, the depiction of the entry into Havana, Che’s oversight of many executions after victory, the Cuban missile crisis and Che’s wish that nuclear missiles be immediately fired at the U.S., his mounting distaste for Russians, his obsessive diary writing, his “lost year” as a failed revolutionary sparkplug in Africa before heading for his fatal misadventure in Bolivia, and even the famous photograph.

From the Variety review, it appears as if Hollywood has missed another opportunity to tell the truth about the life of Che as revolutionary and murderous thug.