by MARK SLUTSKY

In 1952, a 23-year-old Ernesto Guevara, still yet to adopt the nickname "Che," set out on a road trip with his older friend Alberto Granado, intending to travel the length and breadth of South America on an old Norton 500 motorcycle. The bike went bust somewhere along the way and the two didn't quite get as far as they had hoped. But later on in life, Guevara and Granado would each publish books about the experience and The Motorcycle Diaries draws from both of these written accounts to recreate the famous journey.

Gael García Bernal plays Guevara and his fresh-faced youthfulness is a far cry from the beret-clad beardo that has become the revolutionary leader's iconic image. By showing the man before he became Che, director Walter Salles (Central Station) illustrates the formative experiences that led Guevara from an upper-middle-class family into guerilla warfare.

However, The Motorcycle Diaries works much better as a movie when you forget that you're watching Che - at heart, it's a road-trip movie. With Rodrigo de la Serna playing Granado, the outrageous foil to the more reserved Guevara, it's pretty much a classic comedy setup. Their adventures throughout the continent consist of trying to pick up girls, scamming free meals, cursing their broken motorbike and pretending to be famous doctors. This is where the movie really hits its stride, taking place in a South America that you've probably never seen on film before. Salles apparently took great care to shoot as much as possible in the original locations; as a result, the cinematography is really beautiful.

When the film gets down to Guevara's spiritual conversion, though, it starts to feel more like an all-too reverent biopic, especially the terribly symbolic penultimate scene, where our hero bridges the gap between rich and poor (I'll say no more). But if you let yourself forget about that stuff, (and thankfully there's not too much of it), you'll find The Motorcycle Diaries to be an enjoyable, and often funny, trip through '50s South America.

The Motorcycle Diaries opens Friday, Oct. 1

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