Hollywood meets Havana as the 46th New York Film Festival glides and sometimes stumbles into its second week. In “Che,” Benicio Del Toro, wearing a jaunty beret and wispy tufts of beard, wages war against Yankee-supported states in Steven Soderbergh’s 257-minute (with a 30-minute bladder break) historical epic. Meanwhile in “Changeling,” Clint Eastwood’s 141-minute period drama, Angelina Jolie, wearing a jaunty cloche and bloody slash of lipstick, does battle against the patriarchs of 1920s Los Angeles. “Che” and “Changeling” were first shown in May at the Cannes Film Festival, where they were swaddled in hype and hysteria and anointed with tears of critical joy and fury. Other similarities: both were directed by men who have always maintained a distance from the studios for which they profitably work. Both also hinge on bankable Hollywood stars — Mr. Del Toro as Che, Ms. Jolie as Christine Collins — and feature recognizable faces in supporting roles. Lou Diamond Phillips plays a sissy Communist leader in “Che,” in which a distracting Matt Damon pops up as a man of peace. I didn’t notice any pinkos in “Changeling,” but John Malkovich goes all righteous and solemn as a man of the cloth.
Divided into two sections — once called “The Argentine” and “Guerrilla” — the now monosyllabically titled “Che” tracks the guerrilla leader over mountains and through his tactical successes in Cuba before moving on to his catastrophic bid to bring revolutionary socialism to Bolivia. The movie has been described as dialectical, but two parts do not a dialectic make: something meaningful has to happen between those parts. Throughout the movie Mr. Soderbergh mixes the wild beauty of his landscapes with images of Che heroically engaged in battle, thoughtfully scribbling and reading, and tending to ailing peasants and soldiers. Che wins, Che loses, but Che remains the same in what plays like a procedural about a charismatic leader, impossible missions and the pleasures of work and camaraderie — “Ocean’s Eleven” with better cigars.
Divided into two sections — once called “The Argentine” and “Guerrilla” — the now monosyllabically titled “Che” tracks the guerrilla leader over mountains and through his tactical successes in Cuba before moving on to his catastrophic bid to bring revolutionary socialism to Bolivia. The movie has been described as dialectical, but two parts do not a dialectic make: something meaningful has to happen between those parts. Throughout the movie Mr. Soderbergh mixes the wild beauty of his landscapes with images of Che heroically engaged in battle, thoughtfully scribbling and reading, and tending to ailing peasants and soldiers. Che wins, Che loses, but Che remains the same in what plays like a procedural about a charismatic leader, impossible missions and the pleasures of work and camaraderie — “Ocean’s Eleven” with better cigars.
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