(2008; b/w and color, Spanish and English) "How does it feel to be a symbol?" asks the American female journalist interviewing Ernesto "Che" Guevara (Benicio Del Toro), whom she refers to as "the brains of the Cuban revolution," in 1964 following his addressing the United Nations in New York City. Accusing the US government of imperialism and racism, Che, among his list of demands, calls upon the American government to end its embargo of Cuba, surveillance flights over the island, and efforts to undermine the Castro government.

Alternating from black-and-white for the interview portions to color for the scenes in Cuba (1955-9), contrasting rhetoric with reality, Part One of director Steven Soderberg's docudramatic diegesis (narrative or history) is based on Guevara's Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War, being the first part of a 4½-hour movie that (unless you're really into the history of Marxist revolution) feels like an academic assignment to watch.

Leaving behind his wife and daughter in Mexico, Che, an Argentine doctor and Marxist in his mid-40s, joins Fidel Castro (Damien Bichir), Raúl, and a boatload of 80 revolutionaries to invade Cuba in December 1956 to overthrow the hated, corrupt, oppressive Batista dictatorship, which has only benefited the rich landlords, leaving the peasantry in poverty.

With only eleven of the invaders surviving the initial, failed effort to incite a widespread uprising (his internal allies were defeated or refused to revolt), Castro, facing overwhelming odds, retreats into the Sierra Maedras.

On May 28, 1957, the rebels attack the Uvero barracks, striking a psychological blow against the regime. "Whoever takes the Sierra Maedras takes Cuba," avers Fidel, directing a strategy of three columns. Che, who suffers from asthma, is given charge of removing the injured; he says that the march of the wounded transformed him from being a doctor into a guerrilla soldier.

An editorial published in The New York Times provides Fidel's "26th of July Movement" with international recognition. Small groups of sympathetic supporters begin gravitating toward the rebels from the cities. Seven years later in New York, American liberals fete Castro's minister of industry, who speaks of the revolution's moral principles as "love of humanity, justice, and truth."

Castro in 1957 makes alliance with the urban-based Civic Resistance, whose terrorist campaigns do not accord with his Communist ideals or commitment to agrarian reform.

Che exhorts his guerrillas against harming peasants or stealing their property; a pair of traitors, posing as leaders of the rebels, are executed for committing murder and rape. Accepting only volunteers who have their own weapons, Che occasionally makes exceptions to turning away young teenagers as recruits; he allows a few women to teach the illiterates to read and write or as Aleida March (Catalina Sandino Moreno) to act as a guide.

In 1958, while agreeing to the Caracas pact of restoring the 1940 constitution and holding elections, Fidel removes Che from command of the fourth column to take charge of training new recruits and then using his political skills to unite various rebel factions under Fidel's centralized command. His arm broken from a fall, Che, having sufficient forces to confront Batista's military directly, leads his guerrillas to Santa Clara, surrounding the city before forcing the surrender of the defenders. Following the victory, the revolutionaries move on to Havana.

Part Two, based on Guevara's The Bolivian Diary, begins with Fidel Castro's reading of Che's letter of farewell and resignation from his duties in Cuba (including citizenship) in October 1965. Leaving his wife Aleida and their children behind in Cuba, Che, 58 years old, becomes Ramón, a special representative of the Organization of American States, to sneak into La Paz, Bolivia, in November 1966 for the purpose of training guerrillas for another armed revolt against an oppressive government.

The fragmentary, impressionistic, episodic style, coupled with subtitles (for anyone not fluent in Spanish) makes for difficulties in following the narrative.

Che's identity is kept disguised throughout his mission because it is thought that Bolivians won't accept a foreign leader. The head of the Bolivian Communist Party, Mario Monje, after listening to Che's arguments - high infant mortality, massacre of miners for striking - declines to recommend enlisting with the armed struggle; later he interferes with Cuban reinforcements getting into Bolivia.

The Cuban revolutionary, who has brought other Cubans with him, offers Bolivian volunteers no promise other than hardship, warning his followers that liars will not be tolerated; the guerrillas make efforts to win the hearts and minds of the peasantry. Che says to Camba, a Bolivian recruit, who will desert and join the army: "You have to live as if you're already dead."

The US government advises President Barrientos to employ "an iron fist" against the rebels, providing aircraft and military advisers to train special forces to eradicate them; the Bolivian leader (having evidence confiscated from the guerrillas) publicly accuses the rebels of being "an invasion promoted by Castro," though he denies that Che Guevara is involved.

Che writes to French philosopher Sartre and Bertrand Russell for international support for the Bolivian freedom cause; French journalist Regis Debray, suspected of being a Trojan horse, accompanies the guerrillas before being captured.

Infighting within the rebels affects morale, discipline, and combat readiness, resulting in desertions; most of the peasants they approach appear uninterested in violent revolt. When the miners at Siglio XX go on strike in support of the rebels, the authorities make a show of force as an example to others, killing 87 men.

On the run from the Bolivian military, trying to reunite with a dozen others - including fellow Cuban and the only female, Tania (Franka Potente) - separated from the main force, Che (who has changed his name again to Fernando), his asthmatic condition (not having medicines) worsening, is trapped on October 9th, 1967, in the Yuro Ravine.

The end credits are shown in silence; Pablo Guevara was Mr Del Toro's assistant.

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