A movie about a motorsickle…

I bought The World’s Fastest Indian when it came out on DVD last week, and am halfway through it now. I’m at the part where he is at the little hotel in Bonneville and using boot polish to fill in the cracks on his 25 year old tires. :'(

What a splendid movie! And Anthony Hopkins is so very good. I don’t know what the original Burt Munro was like, and how accurately this movie portrays him, but I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve teared up over the things he says and does, and how very genuine he is. Just a quiet, unassuming, charming man with his quaint expressions and his single-minded devotion to his old, 1920s “motor-sickle”. Do they even make people like him anymore?

Whether you like motorcycles or not, watch this movie. Ignore the idiotic DVD cover, reviews, and the occassional Hollywoodized soaring background music. It is a good story, with good scenes, good dialogue, interesting characters and a truly historic gorgeous machine. And in the youth worshipping culture that we live in, how often do you see a movie that has an 80+ year old man as a central character?