Benicio Del Toro: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

2. Ernesto "Che" Guevara - Che (2008)

It can be hard to portray a historical figure, especially one that's passed from being a human being to an icon. It's even more difficult when they've passed from human being to icon to design for t-shirts and posters beloved of "radical" students, so what Benicio del Toro managed to do with his turn as Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara in Steven Soderbergh's - hey, that guy again! - two-part feature length biopic of the controversial political titan is even more impressive. The Argentine and Guerilla, the subtitles of the Che films, add up to a mammoth run time of 257 minutes. It never drags, however, and a big part of that is down to del Toro's magnetic performance in the title role. The first part chronicles Guevara's first meeting with Fidel Castro in 1955, and covers the Cuban Revolution of 1953-1959 through a framing device that sees Che being interviewed after the fact by journalist Lisa Howard. That's a two-fold accomplishment for Benicio, as not only does he actually act in these scenes of great historical importance - rather than just re-enacting them, like a live read of a textbook - he also manages to convince us that he's aged eight years across the course of the film. Che Part Two is a little more of a bittersweet affair, as the triumph of the revolution in Cuba is replaced by the failure of the Bolivian insurgency just a few years later. The difference is even more striking watching the two films as one, as the iconic Guevara del Toro plays in the first film - complete with chin strap beard and beret - is replaced by a downtrodden, haggard soldier who just wants to go home. The actor gets even more to do with this lesser-documented end of the revolutionary's life and career, imbuing him with a personal tragedy you won't get from a history book.