THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN
Directed & Written by: Roger Donaldson.
Produced by: Roger Donaldson & Gary Hannam.
Director of Photography: David Gribble.
Edited by: John Gilbert.
Music by: J. Peter Robinson.
Released by: Magnolia.
Country of Origin: New Zealand/USA. 126 min. Rated: PG-13.
With: Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Cauffiel, Patrick Flueger, Saginaw Grant, Diane Ladd, Chris Lawford, Aaron Murphy, Paul Rodriguez, Annie Whittle & Chris Williams.

For 25 years Burt Munro (Anthony Hopkins) has dreamt of shattering the international speed record by riding on his vintage Indian Scout motorcycle. At first, the audience may be reluctant to take Burt to heart. Living in a sleepy New Zealand town, he wakes his neighbors early in the morning revving his motor and later sets his lawn on fire after taking a hint that his grass is unkempt. Yet Munro remains an eccentric father figure to the red-haired young boy next door, to whom he offers pearls like, "If you don't follow through in your dreams, you might as well be a vegetable." Taking his own advice, Munro puts his property up for collateral and sets sail for America to race in Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats, despite having a bum heart and being hard of hearing.

He arrives in a Ralph Bakshi vision of Hollywood, encountering a crabby cabby, a predatory hooker, and an anachronistic but benevolent drag queen as his guardian angel. Although it's 1967, Tina (Chris Williams) barely gets a glance from passersby as she helps Burt navigate LA. (Although he may be an expert on aerodynamics, Burt fails to realize that in the US, cars drive on the right side of the road.) On his own, Munro’s road trip through the West brings him to a brief friendship with a hitchhiking GI fresh from Vietnam and a one night stand with Diane Ladd. He finally makes it to Utah, though not realizing he had to register for the tournament months earlier.

As the odds are piled overwhelmingly against Munro, only the most hard-hearted would fail to root for him. The tenaciously manipulative script wears down any resistance. Fortunately, Hopkins' subtle acting brings a sense of reality to many of the script's farfetched moments (even though the film is based on fact). He wryly underplays the role of Munro, who is accurately described by a friend as the most determined old coot. While the film tirelessly aims to entertain with the naïve fish-out-of-the water cliché, the actor grabs hold of his character's take-it-or-leave-it attitude, which is especially true in Burt's relationships with women. It's this attitude that undercuts the hokum and preciousness, though just barely. Kent Turner
December 9, 2005