Guevara comes out a loser in "Che: Part Two"

The movie “Che: Part Two” rightfully paints Dr. Ernesto "Che" Guevara as a zealous and misdirected leader of a lost cause following his triumph in Cuba.

Directed by Steven Soderbergh, the second and final chapter of the epic film about the Argentinean revolutionary takes him to Bolivia for a repeat performance of the freedom fighter's one-time success of overthrowing a dictatorship.

However, his soldiers arrive in South America unprepared for the rejection they receive from Bolivian peasants who distrust foreigners, especially those from Cuba. They never warm up to Che’s mission to treat their illnesses and give them money to gather soldiers in the war against oppression. In fact, some poor farmers side with the Bolivian military aided by U.S. secret forces. Starving and ill equipped, Che leads his men into a deep ravine where they are easily surrounded and either killed or captured.

This movie is long, slow-paced and nowhere as good as “Che: Part One” that chronicle’s Guevara’s heroic victory in Cuba and arrival as a power player in the Communist movement that so troubled Washington D.C. in the 1950s and 1960s.

This tragedy presents its hero as a loser with a swelled head. Near the end Che, portrayed by Benico Del Toro with Oscar-worthy skill, spits in the face of a Bolivian commandant before his own execution, adding another casualty to a noble cause that ends in disaster.

Che had by then delivered Cuba yet another dictator in Fidel Castro, whose poor leadership was equally to blame for this blunder in South America. While Che struggled in Bolivia, Havana lost contact with his ground troops because Castro provided them with faulty radio transmitters.

One has to admire this warmonger to some degree for his bravado.

But it’s a wonder anyone would still worship Che, to whom Cuban schoolchildren continue to offer their daily pledges of allegiance. Thanks, though, to Soderbergh for crafting this story without the bias of history-glossed romanticism.

Che Part Two

This should be a great movie if it's half as good as "Che Part One."

A riveting movie about Che's rise to hero status

Director Steven Soderbergh delivers a thrilling war movie with “Che: Part One,” the story of Dr. Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s rise to hero status during the Cuban Revolution.

It has nail-biting shootouts in Colonial towns and larger cities, including one waged from the roof of a old Roman Catholic Church, as well as references to spaghetti westerns and cowboy actor John Wayne before Havana falls to Marxist guerrillas.

Along the way, Guevara, portrayed flawlessly by Benicio Del Toro, wins the hearts of peasant farmers by arming them with an education and guns before overthrowing Gen. Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship. Che takes part in every battle, sometimes on the front lines despite protests from Fidel Castro, who wants his great soldier-leader with severe asthma to survive the war. Meanwhile, Che tends to the poor and sick, includes war crime victims in the jungle trial of their attackers and even prevents his soldiers from looting before the more than two-hour movie ends along the road to Havana.

The war scenes are shot in color, while clips of Che’s famous 1964 appearance at the United Nations are shown in black and white. While speaking in New York, he sharply criticizes the United States for its treatment of blacks and the U.N. for ignoring apartheid in South Africa.

Some critics haven’t been kind to this movie that opened Friday at Pittsburgh’s Harris Theater and will conclude into next week with Part 2. Some complain that it ignores the hero’s mysterious early life and doesn’t give much attention to the politics that brought about the revolution.

There is always Google or regular books to learn more about what is missing from this epic. Or rent “The Motorcycle Diaries,” the 2004 movie about Che’s South American road trip that sheds light on how he developed his compassion for the less fortunate.

Soderbergh deliveres a classic, and southwestern Pennsylvania is lucky to have Pittsburgh Filmmakers, the nonprofit media center responsible for showing this movie. I can’t wait to see “Che: Part II.” If only Filmmakers had the money to replace those uncomfortable chairs in that theater.