white male consumer

Anthony Hopkins is looking old. Or perhaps he just pulls off a deaf, doddering 68-year-old New Zealander very well. Either way, his performance in The World’s Fastest Indian makes for an entertaining, light-hearted film based on true events. Hopkins plays Burt Munro, an eccentric personality from Down Under, whose sole passion in life is his 1920 Indian motorcycle. The year now is 1967, and Munro’s health is failing. He’s owned and slaved away on the bike for the past forty years. His dream is taking it to the Bonneville Salt Flats, a mecca for speed freaks, because of the miles and miles of flat, smooth surface. Munro wants to set a new land speed record.

Munro faces the sort of hardships one could expect – health issues, finances, getting to Bonneville in one piece (with the motorcycle). The film is safe and conventional, the ending a forgone conclusion. First we see Munro in his element, New Zealand. There is the neighbor kid Tom (Aaron Murphy, narrowly walking that thin line between adorable and nauseating), the young scamp who believes in Munro. Fran (Annie Whittle) is the elderly love interest. The biker gang which eventually gives Munro some “beer money” for the trip over. Munro gets to America, where he (predictably) meets a new eclectic group – the cross-dressing Tina Washington (Chris Williams), the “real” Indian Jake (Saginaw Grant). And in the end? Well, we all know what will happen.

Despite the predictability, Fastest Indian is still an entertaining film. The acting is seamless. The characters spend a great deal of time repeating themselves to Munro, who’s a bit hard of hearing. And we’re eventually left rooting for the guy, hoping he’ll make it. Even if we didn’t want to. (After all, the guy is a serious liability on his bike.) Writer / director Roger Donaldson deserves the most credit here, since the film teeters incredibly close to being overly sentimental. He manages to keep it reined in, however, and we get an amusing, feel-good film as a result. The PG-13 rating is laughable, there’s nothing here to offend even the most puritanical viewer. See The World’s Fastest Indian for some innocent fun.