Before you call me heartless for not loving this seemingly poignant film about a man who in discovering social injustice finds himself, bear in mind that my gripe is not with the subject of the film, but the manner in which it is told. I actually found the last 30-minutes of the movie quite moving, and I think this had much to do with the fact that the main characters finally stopped moving. They planted themselves in one place and we finally had the opportunity to see a bit more of the human face of inequality and prejudice that may have greatly impacted them, but rushed by us in the first three-fourths of the film.
This film actually has quite a few qualities in its favor. It has breathtaking cinematography and captures exquisitely almost every possible land form and climate. The strength of the acting is also commendable especially considering how little the characters say throughout the course of the film. This is one film where I actually longed for more dialogue and believe this would have benefited the film, especially during the long, laborious first half.
While I want to give the filmmakers credit if their aim was to reflect the long pauses likely to accompany a motorcycle trip across a continent, I would also like to remind them that this sort of thing generally makes for bad entertainment. Yes, label me a typical “American” with a 15-minute attention span, but I’ve seen enough films to appreciate that even slow, plodding dramas do not have to feel that way. Unfortunately, The Motorcycle Diaries is not one of these films.
