Arts & Entertainment
The Coastside Film Society presents a tale about a real life Don Quixote on a motorcycle
The World's Fastest Indian (127 mins)
For 25 years in a remote corner of New Zealand, a real life character named Burt Munro tinkered away on his beloved 1920 Indian motorcycle. He dreams of taking it to Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats to see how fast she can go. In 1967, when heart disease threatens his life Burt decides to go for it. He mortgages his house, signs on as a ship's cook, and makes his way to the USA. In Los Angles Burt buys an old car, builds at rattletrap trailer, and begins a road trip to the salt flats -- charming everyone he meets along the way. Will they let an old guy compete in the land-speed trials on an ancient cycle with bald tires, no brakes, and no chute? You can probably guess the answer. No matter. The racing sequences are thrilling, but it is the trip there that makes this such a great ride.
"Burt (played by Acadamy Award winner Anthony Hopkins) encounters all kinds of people from Los Angeles to Bonneville, and somewhere, midway, the lovely thing happens: The movie takes on a magical quality. (The film) finds a pleasant, measured rhythm and makes a viewer feel as if it would be quite all right to watch Burt's journey for hours and hours. He is, after all, the only unself-conscious man in America, and we look upon him in the same way as most people do in the movie, with bemusement, at first, then fascination, and then affection." Mick LaSalle San Francisco Chronicle
Rated PG-13 for brief language, drug use and sexual references.
