With all odds against him, Burt puts his irrepressible kiwi spirit to the test, braving the new world on a shoestring budget. In the late 1960's, after a lifetime of perfecting his classic INDIAN MOTORCYCLE, Burt Munro sets off from the bottom of the world, Invercargill, New Zealand, to clock his bike at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. And if there is justice in the boffo box office world, The World's Fastest Indian will be a true Oscar contender in 2006.THE WORLD’S FASTEST INDIAN A Story of Speed, Daring and Tenacity! It’s Never Too Late For The Ride of Your Life!Īcademy Award® winner, Anthony Hopkins stars as Burt Munro, a man who never let the dreams of youth fade. Stellar performance, and Hopkins' Burt treats Tina with such dignity it defines friendship.ĭon't miss this fine, fine film. Perhaps the best scene - and heart - stealer is Chris Williams as Tina, a cross-dressing front desk night clerk at a fleabag hooker hotel. Great actors in small roles abound, including Diane Ladd as Ada, a frontier gal that's been lonely a while, Saginaw Grant as Jake, an "Indian" with a really distasteful solution to Burt's prostate problems, and Paul Rodriguez as Fernando, a human and humane used car salesman. The supporting cast is as beautiful and bizarre as it gets, and the audience becomes inordinately fond and just about every one of them except for a nasty foreign cabdriver (Carlos Lacamara), but hey, somebody had to be disliked. Whether he's battling young ruffians who diss his ancient motorcycle or banking, bureaucrats and red tape, he is a wrinkled but worthy warrior. What he DOES have is an indomitable spirit that will never, ever stop trying. Every scene is a jewel in this movie, and the cumulative effect proves that extraordinary films do not have to cost bazillions of dollars and take two years of computer-generated special effects to WOW their audience.īurt is challenged by every imaginable obstacle standing between him and his speed dream: his failing heart may give out any minute, the journey around the world to transport the 1920 Indian motorcycle to the USA seems insurmountable, he has no machine shop or whiz-bang tools and equipment to work his engineering miracles, etc. There's a clever ongoing bit about the taste of Burt's hot tea, and you will also wonder a bit about how his lemonade might taste. It is no wonder that the children of the real-life Burt Munro were moved to tears by Hopkins' portrayal. The fact that this film is based on the true story of Burt Munro makes it all the more captivating, but a l esser actor than Hopkins might very well have lost us along the way.
As Burt Munro - an aging New Zealand man losing his hearing, short on money, living in a shed surrounded by weeds, considered a lovable if eccentric oddball by all who know him except one small boy, and obsessed with making a 45 year old motorcycle capable of breaking the land speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats - Hopkins takes us along for the ride every minute of this movie. This film is at turns charming, bawdy, fascinating, riveting, nerve wracking, hilarious, heartwarming and heartbreaking. The man can disappear inside of characters so diverse and capture you so completely, that you have to wonder if his well of talent has a bottom.
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Read full reviewĪnthony Hopkins is simply astounding. New Zealand director Roger Donaldson doesn't take any chances here, but the story clearly means something to him, and that sense of commitment carries the film through its sleepier moments. Smaller bits are well-filled by Diane Ladd and Christopher Lawford (son of Peter), who looks uncannily of the era. (People of a certain age, for whom the word "Bonneville" evokes pleasant associations with hotrods and world-speed records, will not be disappointed in the film's location shooting, or its sense of awe.) Hopkins is not quite on-the-money casting for the jovial, happy-go-lucky Munro, and his accent wavers, but he nails the emotional scenes and the fascination with speed.
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The movie takes a while to get to the journey-and then the journey takes a while-but the genial atmosphere prevails. It's the 1960s, and Burt has the utterly mad idea of taking the bike to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, site of world records for speed racing. Burt Munro, played by Anthony Hopkins, is a cantankerous Kiwi with an obsession: he's been tinkering with his 1920s-era Indian brand motorcycle for years, pushing it to ever-faster speeds.
A movie that exudes affection and goodwill, The World's Fastest Indian is an unabashed mash note to a lovely character from New Zealand's recent past.
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