The “gutless” biopic Roger Ebert despised: “Excruciating boredom, accompanied by nausea”
In recent years, it seems as though biopics have become increasingly common; they’re a surefire way to get people talking, whether they’re good or bad, and often generate Oscar buzz as a result. Of course, music biopics tend to be the most popular, and while there are many great ones out there, like Control, which follows Joy Division’s Ian Curtis, there have been just as many flops. Did anyone actually enjoy the tragic depiction of Amy Winehouse in Back to Black?
It seems like the bigger the star, the harder it is to do a truly good job of portraying them. Actors need to ensure they’re not simply delivering a caricature, and in some cases, the celebrity of the actor gets in the way of the famous icon they’re playing. There is also the issue of giving someone’s story proper justice, which can be tricky if the subject led a difficult life. Blonde, directed by Andrew Dominik, is a prime example, with the depiction of Marilyn Monroe coming across as incredibly exploitative and objectifying.
Legendary film critic Roger Ebert had a complicated relationship with biopics, and while he really liked some, such as Raging Bull, there were others that he believed were nothing more than cash-grabbing opportunities. Take Che!, for instance, which he absolutely hated, giving it just one star.
“From the beginning, it sounded like a bad dream,” he wrote. “Hollywood was making a movie about Che Guevara. Why? Probably because somebody smelled easy money, having been inspired by the sales figures on Che posters. That must have been the reason, because Che! is abundant evidence that no one connected with this stinkeroo gave a damn about Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, the Cuban Revolution or anything else requiring more than five seconds’ thought”.
Directed by Richard Fleischer, the movie saw Omar Sharif play the famous Marxist, but few people were impressed by the movie, which remains one of the worst-reviewed films of the actor’s career. “But all we get is a movie that’s literally indifferent. It is impossible to determine what the film’s makers thought about Guevara, if anything. The movie’s dominant quality is gutlessness,” Ebert said.
Che! lost several million dollars and is widely forgotten these days, perhaps because the movie failed to say anything meaningful. Ebert ended his review by writing, “The amusing thing is that the right wing has mobilized against Che! without seeing it. A theater in New York was bombed the other day, and a Chicago letter-writing campaign urges me to denounce this film ‘glorifying’ Guevara.”
“The movie was scheduled to open on Memorial Day, but local vigilantes prevented that with threats of picketing: The opening would be an insult to every veteran, etc. Now that they’ve seen Che!, I imagine they’ll start raising money to get it on TV. All this movie inspires toward the Cuban Revolution is excruciating boredom, accompanied by nausea.”
As far as biopics go, Che! is a prime example of why a good one needs to be made with more than profit in mind. Biopics should offer a truly complex portrait of its subject, but it seems as though Fleischer only had dollar signs in his eyes.
