Weekend Movie Forecast: Che, Gran Torino, Doubt

Che, Stephen Soderberg's epic biopic about legendary T-shirt entrepreneur Che Guevara, opens in New York tonight for a one-week run at the indispensable Ziegfeld theater, in order to qualify for an Academy Award nomination. J. Hoberman at the Village Voice writes, "Throughout Che, the emphasis is on process—indeed, Soderbergh acted as his own director of photography, under the name Peter Andrews. Moreover, the movie presents its subject almost entirely in the context of three events—the Cuban Revolution, the Bolivian debacle, and a 1964 trip to the United Nations.

"There were some at Cannes who accused Soderbergh and screenwriter Peter Buchman of evading the facts: Where was Che's bureaucratic bungling and his persecution of political enemies? What about his love affairs? His adventures in the Congo? Why, others wanted to know, did Soderbergh withhold the ecstatic entrance into Havana? Everything must be deduced from Che's behavior under actual or rhetorical fire—he is defined in terms of his desire and capacity to make history.

"After Soderbergh normalized Che (mainly by tweaking the first half to soften its strangeness), his movie seemed disappointingly less formally rigorous—but even more scrupulous in its pursuit of an objective narrative. The filmmaker wanted to make history as well."