The political material in the movie of Che Guevara's motercycle diaries feels grafted on - a clumsy afterthought, mostly. But that doesn't detract from a charming road movie with brilliant scenery from Argentina all the way up to Peru. For the first hour or so the film is a comedy, mostly, about two adventurous young men, but then somewhere in the atacama desert they run into the poverty of the indian population and the preaching begins. Fortunately, the sermonizing does not last long and the films final sequence at a peruvian leper colonoy works quite well.
An interesting aspect of the film is that Che Guevara's companion, Alberto Granada, is still alive and took part in the making of the movie.
Unanswered question: Granada is played by Rodrigo de la Serna. Che Guevara's real name is Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna. Are these two men related, or is 'de la Serna' an Argentinian equivalent of 'Smith'?