has a charm and wonderful message

Rating: 8/10 (11 August 2006)

The World's Fastest Indian is a slice-of-life biopic with elements of road movie about Burt Munro, a New Zealander who travels to Utah in order to break a speed record on his motorcycle called Indian. I usually disapprove of predictable biopics of which the main purpose is to glorify the main character. However, The World's Fastest Indian achieves a level of which other biopics' creators can only dream (I'm thinking about Ron Howard among others right now). Namely, this movie has a charm and wonderful message that age really doesn't matter when you have a passion for anything you adore. Burt Munro is depicted as a saintly, spotless old man who delights every person he meets with grace. In this respect the film resembles Lynch's The Straight Story. I would lie if I wrote that naivety of Donaldson's movie didn't annoy me at times, but through most of the flick I support Munro in his road to success. The credit for this goes to Sir Anthony Hopkins whose amazing performance in this flick is one of the best in his career and in 2005. The cinematography and dessert scenery are delightful. In addition, thanks to good-natured tone the film has a bit fairylike character and funny moments, which I enjoyed. All in all, not only motorcycle fans will adore this picture. Thumbs up.