Hopkins in Peak Form as New Zealand's Legendary Speed Demon

Rating: 7/10 (15 June 2006)

This 2005 film directed and written by Roger Donaldson is quite a charmer, a true family film with a genuinely heroic protagonist in a compelling story of triumph against the odds. Motorcycle enthusiast Burt Munro has fascinated Donaldson since he made a documentary about the New Zealand folk hero in 1973, "Offerings to the Gods of Speed", which is an invaluable extra in the 2006 DVD package. I can see why as this unassuming eccentric with MacGyver-level ingenuity is such a likable codger with his singular purpose of racing his 1920 Indian Scout motorcycle during "Speed Week" on the pitch white desolation of the Bonneville Speedway.
Fortunately, Anthony Hopkins brings a great deal of heart to Munro and portrays this unique personality with economy and dexterity, even though his Munro-mimicking mumbled tones can make him hard to understand at times. The film follows his journey from Invercargill at the southern tip of New Zealand through the urban jungle of Hollywood to the wide expanses of the salt flats in Utah. It feels like four films combined into one with the first part establishing Munro's eccentricities and local celebrity relative to a watchful boy who lives next door and idolizes the old man. When Munro makes it to California, it becomes a bit like "Crocodile Dundee" or any fish-out-of-water comedy with Munro surviving by his wits in spite of his inbred trust in people. The third part is a more standard road movie that echoes "Transamerica" and "The Motorcycle Diaries" for the stereotypical characters Munro runs into en route to Bonneville.
The fourth and final part of the film is the best, as it converts into a Rocky-like episode in Munro's challenging quest to compete and his ultimate victory. Donaldson makes the four sections feel relatively seamless, though I feel he could have edited the second and third parts more given how the pacing starts to lag. There are also some contrived plot elements that could have been jettisoned entirely like the youthful motorcycle gang who switch from threatening hooligans to Munro's financial supporters or the sequence with Diane Ladd as a woman who shares his bed for a night. Other than the Vietnam War soldier talking positively about Agent Orange, the movie actually romanticizes the U.S. of the 1960's in a way that's quite refreshing.
The race sequences near the end of the picture are powerfully executed. But it's really Hopkins who completely inhabits Munro and makes the whole movie work emotionally, and to his immense credit, he does it with a minimum of fuss. The DVD package is chock full of extras all due to the fact that Donaldson has so much passion about his subject. Beyond his original 1973 half-hour documentary on Munro, he lends expert commentary on an alternate track and is also the chief participant in the extensive 45-minute making-of featurette. There are also four deleted scenes plus a brief musical travelogue of New Zealand's Southland. The movie's theatrical run was shamefully limited last December, so hopefully the DVD package will give the movie the greater audience it deserves.