The World’s Fastest Indian
2006
Director: Roger DonaldsonCast: Anthony Hopkins, Aaron Murphy, Annie Whittle
B+
he world’s fastest Indian is a 1920 Indian Twin Scout motorcycle (engine no. 5OR627)—Indian was the top American motorcycle brand from 1901 to 1953 (when it went into receivership)—clocked at 190.07 mph at Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats in 1967 by one Burt Munro, a pensioner and grandfather born in Invercargill, New Zealand, in 1899 whose land speed world record for a motorcycle under 1,000 cc’s, the closing title tells us, still stands. NZ writer/director Roger Donaldson (who did The Bounty with Hopkins) adapted his 1971 documentary on the Kiwi legend, Offerings to the God of Speed, with Japanese financing through OLC/Rights Entertainment (a wholly owned subsidiary of Oriental Land Co Ltd., Disney’s theme-park operator in Japan, headed by Masaharu Inaba, who did Howard’s End with Hopkins) and executive producer, New Zealander 3 Dogs & A Pony, one of whose partners includes Barrie Osborne, producer of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Executive Producer of The Matrix. It’s worth mentioning because the film was modestly budgeted—Anthony Hopkins reputedly did the film at a fraction of his regular asking price—and had the home-made charm and vigor of an Ozzie independent and the chummy, unpretentious feel of a gerontion biker club.
A subdued, relaxed Anthony Hopkins plays Munro, a rugged but sweet eccentric in the English mould, obsessed with pushing his customized Indian to “her” limits after a long and successful national speed racing career. His dream is Utah’s “Speed Week” and a balls-out, heart-in-your-throat tear, in spite of the prostate problems and angina. He packs up his Indian, ships out to America and road trips it to Bonneville after a brief sojourn in Hollyweird.
Burt is a practical, natural, self-sufficient man at home in the elements and at ease with everyone, as everyone in the 1960 American West is with him. He substitutes a tree trunk for a flat tire, smelts his own weights from scrap batteries, gobbles dog-bone dust given to him by an American Indian acquaintance for his prostrate and even drops his angina medication into the “motosickle’s” gas tank before the big time trial at Bonneville because he knows it contains the explosive nitroglycerine. After some hemming and hawing from the officials, however, since he should have registered months earlier, but they decide to give him the benefit of the doubt, only to discover he’s got no fire suit, no extinguisher, a cork for a gas cap, ancient tires, no brake chute—hell, no brakes!—and… “Is that a door hinge?!” But they know the genuine article when they see it, give him a shot anyway and the rest is his and her story.
The film is surprisingly clunky for a director as experienced as Donaldson. The narrative was a little bumpy and, with the exception of cameos by Paul Rodriguez as a used car salesman, Diane Ladd as Burt’s American widow fling and Chris Williams as a cross-dressing Hollywood flophouse aide-de-camp (with an emphasis on the camp), most of the American actors were surprisingly stiff. Donaldson seemed more at home at home, with Annie Whittle (Burt’s Down Under “cuddle”) and Aaron Murphy (as the boy next door). And it didn’t feel like Sixties America without the American Graffiti soundtrack. Apparently, the budget couldn’t handle the needle drop and the cameos from the vintage rides: The Pumpkin Seed, The Redhead, The Challenger, and The Flying Caduceus.
Biographical obligations also seemed to unnecessarily hinder the storytelling. The cocktail napkin sketch/Polo Lounge breakfast pitch is that Burt Munro is ‘the Howard Hughes of the hog’: “At the Salt in 1967 we were going like a bomb. Then she got the wobbles just over half way through the run. To slow her down I sat up. The wind tore my goggles off and the blast forced my eyeballs back into my head—couldn’t see a thing. We were so far off the black line that we missed a steel marker stake by inches. I put her down—a few scratches all round but nothing much else.’ At the time Burt was traveling at close to 206 mph!”) flying by the seat of his pants. (“When I finished the crash I had bash hat still on, waistband of pants, tennis shoes and pieces of socks.”) The rest is documentary.
All in all, a surprise mini-sleeper with a noble subject and real heart… too bad it’s all about the SPEED. What we really need is to slow down and appreciate the humility, the attention to detail, the perseverance and the courage of the real life hero.
By: Chris Panzner Published on: 2006-02-07 Comments (0) |