The sneak preview was pretty packed this week, since word had leaked out that Lucky Number Slevin would be shown. There's a tiny bit of buzz surrounding that movie, thanks in part to the fact that people like Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley and Josh Hartnett are in it, besides which the story was getting some good write-ups on the Net (at least before it's premiere in American last weekend). In true sneak preview fashion, however, the local cinema decided to program another movie altogether, the feelgood movie The World's Fastest Indian. This turned out to be a real fun movie to watch, but a few problems kept me from being fully excited about the movie.
We follow New Zealander Burt Munro, a man with a thing for speed, who has spent a good part of his life turning his Indian motorcycle into a real speed monster. His dream is to go to a speed festival in America, and to there show the world how fast his Indian really is. The movie starts as a fish out of the water story in New Zealand, where Burt's neighbours think he is at least a little weird, then turns into a road trip movie as Burt travels through the United States, meeting all sorts of excentric characters on the way to the festival. The final part of the movie is more of a 'underdog does good'-type sports story, as Burt battles the odds to break the world land speed record.
The World's Fastest Indian is a movie that reminded me greatly of movies like The Straight Story and Schulze Gets The Blues. Like in those movies we have a slightly excentric character in the lead, who makes an almost world spanning journey to reach a goal that might seem unusual to others. Anthony Hopkins is great in the lead, giving Munro both the heart and charm needed for this movie. I was a little bit annoyed however by the way Munro speaks. I know it's part of the character that Hopkins speaks his lines in a distracted way, starting almost every sentence with "er...", but after hearing this a few hundred times it started to get on my nerves. The same was the case with some of the supporting characters. While the little boy playing Burt's neighbour was excellent, some of the characters Burt meets on the road in America were too much over the top for a movie like this. The transvestite hotel receptionist, sleazy car salesman and horny widow were all sadly overacted and make the middle part of the movie into the least interesting. Luckily things turn around for the better in the final part, as the excitement is amped up, thanks to some fantastic shots of Burt on his bike. The cinematography in this movie is excellent anyway, and I found myself thinking to myself several times: "Wow, this looks great!" If only the middle part would have been less slapstick and more in tune with the rest of the movie, The World's Fastest Indian could have been truly memorable, and not just 'fun but forgettable'.
***½