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| YOU ARE HERE : Home > Categories > Movies > Drama > The World's Fastest Indian | |
| ProdID: 754 - The World's Fastest IndianDirected byRoger Donaldson | Product Score: 9.7 |
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Anthony Hopkins stars as Burt Munro, a man who never let the dreams of youth fade. After a lifetime of perfecting his classic Indian motorcycle, Burt set off from the bottom of the world to test his bike at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. With all the odds against him, he set a new land speed record for motocycles under 1000cc, and captured the spirit of his times. Burt Munro's 1967 world record remains unbroken and his legend lives on today. |
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Unlike the previous two reviewers, I didn't really know or care too much about this movie or the man it was based on. Now, I'm not trying to say I'm not a patriotic person, but New Zealand-based movies have, for the most-part, been over acted and ham-fisted. I was pleased to find that was not the case for this one. The plot was easy to follow and timed to flow well. I also felt the accents, not only from Sir Anthony, were a little distracting and seemed false even considering it was a movie with many genuine Kiwi actors. With my list of movies I want or need to get on DVD growing, I am afraid that although this movie is there, it is quite far down. |
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It isn't very often I am tempted to give a movie a perfect score, but every once in a while one comes along that for me to not give it a perfect score could almost be considered a crime. This is one such movie. I have always admired Sir Anthony Hopkins acting ability ever since seeing him in "The Bounty" and then subsequently in "The Silence of the Lambs". If you thought he was a good actor in either of those films then as Bachman-Turner Overdrive once said "you ain't seen nothing yet!" Whilst I agree with my colleague about the accent the rest of his perfomance was supurb and more than made up for it. Now if you ask most people i'm a scifi/fantasy buff by and large but this film reached out and grabbed me and pulled me in for one hell of a ride. This movie shows us more than anything else how our Kiwi can do attitude & No. 8 wire mentality can help us achieve great things and not be a hinderance to following our dreams. Bert Munro is a true kiwi icon and is deserving of being remembered alongside those other great kiwi's such as Ernest Rutherford and Edmund Hillary to name a couple. This is one movie I will most definately be buying to put on my shelf when it comes out on DVD. |
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I am not overly patriotic... after all, the national boundaries required for such a mindset are only arbitrary... dig deep enough and it's all the same lump of spinning rock and iron we live on. However, there are times I am proud to share the same piece of exposed surface rock as some others... The story of Burt Monro is one such moment. Burt Monro faced the chance to live a dream of 25 years, and was confronted by obstacle after obstruction, hiccup after trial... and with true Kiwi heart, soul and ingenuity, he overcame them all, each and every one, and made his dream a reality, paying every cost with good humour and equanimity. Though I wasn't too impressed with Hopkins' attempts at a Kiwi accent, he had the Kiwi soul down perfectly, allowing me to suspend my 'self' and become part of his story without any effort. From the feeding of the lemon tree, to fighting through the pain at more than 190 miles per hour, he was a true Kiwi icon, with all the wit and humour every Kiwi has grown up with from the cradle to the grave. Overall, this is the best drama movie I have seen in years, and loved every minute of it. When it makes it's appearance on DVD it will join those fabled few on The Shelf of Honour, reserved for the stories that wake us up and hold a mirror to our souls, that we may be reminded how to win out against all odds, chase our dreams without fear, and face the universe and pound our chests in defiance against a world that thinks us no more than cattle to be herded by those who we place in power. This is a movie every Kiwi should watch, if for no other reason than to remind us of the people who brought us to where we are and made us a great nation. |
| User Comments |
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Longhunter Stunningly beautiful in its simplicity. Great story superb acting. The New Zealand character exposed to the maximum. Sir Athony Hopkins a must for an Oscar nomination! |
| Printed at 05:44:18am on Monday 13th May 2024 |
