Soderbergh and Del Toro open film festival in Morelia, Mexico

Director Steven Soderbergh and actor Benicio Del Toro are to open Morelia's sixth annual international film festival in Mexico this weekend with "Che," the much-anticipated film about the Argentine revolutionary starring the Puerto Rican actor.

Morelia, the capital city of the state of Michoacan, is still reeling from two grenade explosions that went off in the city's center during the Independence Day celebrations on the night of Sept. 15. But the show is going on.

"Che," which was four hours long when it was last aired for the critics, was both panned and praised at the Cannes film festival in May this year.

"If the director has gone out of his way to avoid the usual Hollywood biopic conventions, he has also withheld any suggestion of why the charismatic doctor, fighter, diplomat, diarist and intellectual theorist became and remains such a legendary figure," said Variety's Todd McCarthy.

A.O. Scott of the New York Times praised Soderbergh for his cohesiveness and attention to detail in the film, but goes on to say:

There is a lot, however, that the audience will not learn from this big movie, which has some big problems as well as major virtues. In between the two periods covered in "Che," Guevara was an important player in the Castro government, but his brutal role in turning a revolutionary movement into a dictatorship goes virtually unmentioned. This, along with Benicio Del Toro's soulful and charismatic performance, allows Mr. Soderbergh to preserve the romantic notion of Guevara as a martyr and an iconic figure, an idealistic champion of the poor and oppressed. By now, though, this image seems at best naive and incomplete, at worst sentimental and dishonest. More to the point, perhaps, it is not very interesting.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: Actor Benicio Del Toro and director Steven Soderbergh at the Cannes photo call for "Che" earlier this year. Credit: WireImage

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for more info about the film CHE or about Benicio DelToro visit www.beniciodeltoro.ca