World's Fastest Indian, The

Movie Info

Genre(s): Adventure  |  Drama

Written by: Roger Donaldson

Directed by: Roger Donaldson

Release Date:
Theatrical: December 7, 2005
DVD: June 13, 2006

Running Time: 127 minutes, Color

Origin: New Zealand / USA

Summary

RATING: PG-13 for brief language, drug use and a sexual reference

Starring Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Lawford, Bruce Greenwood, Paul Rodriguez, Diane Ladd, Aaron Murphy, Chris Williams, and Annie Whittle

Anthony Hopkins stars as Burt Munro, a man who never let the dreams of youth fade. After a lifetime of perfecting his classic Indian motorcycle, Burt sets off from the bottom of the world to test his bike at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. With all the odds against him, he set a new speed record and captured the spirit of his time. Burt Munro's 1967 world record remains unbroken and his legend lives on today. (Magnolia Pictures)

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What The Critics Said

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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 9.2 (out of 10) based on 32 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

John N gave it a10:
At times sentimental, occasionally straining credibility, this feel-good ode to determination and idiosyncracy, is a remarkable and entertaining drama.

Tim M. gave it a5:
i'm sorry new zealand. though i comprehend and admire munro's achievements, i don't see the greatness in this film. it comes across as a disney movie. "is this a disney movie?"...i kept asking myself. there is little or no character development whatsoever. the story is outlined much too shallowly (is that a word?), especially over the first hour. it seems we are rushed to the conclusion. it was hard to get into when not enough was revealed about the characters early on. also, the film had a generally childish feel, not kiddy films are bad, but i felt as if i was being read a bedtime story. some plot elements were relatively absurd and took my mind out of the story, such as the rushed relationship development between munro and that girl. it was also pretty random when munro collapsed that first time, it was as if we the audience were being forced to feel bad for him without knowing much about him. the lack of attribution of munro's character to the real essence of the man does not do him justice... this reminded me of the portrayal of cash in that piece of crap movie "walk the line" cash was and is awesome and that movie was a huge disservice to the true essence of the man. "ray" proved that some human greatness in a biopic can be imitated on film, but i think "world's fastest indian" fell far short of this (and "walk the line" was a piece of crap).

Becky M. gave it an8:
The storyline might have been a tad syrupy and it was either a tad slow or long. But Hopkins was understatingly brilliant. My husband has picked up the way Hopkins laughed in the face of inconvenience.

[Anonymous] gave it a10:
Just wacthed this is such a capivating , enjoyable movies , makes you wish you where there.

Chad S. gave it a7:
At a certain point, Burt Munro(Anthony Hopkins) says, "What?" so often, you wish the filmmaker had forsaken the reality of septugenarian life and blessed him with good hearing. But when Munro triumphs in the Beehive State, the magnitude of his achievement outweighs Hopkins' old man schtick. In "The World's Fastest Indian", we have an eternity to ponder if it's offensive to name a motorcycle after a Native-American. Munro hates smoking, yet he gives an ashtray to a tribal chief as a gift. Along his journey to Utah, we learn he's kind to transgendered minorities and doesn't need viagra(including Ladd, who seems to be playing Flo in retirement). He's also long-winded(in which the other characters stand around and let Hopkins "Act!"). It's not until his fellow land-speed enthusiasts rhapsodize about his courage and pluck do we fully engage with Munro's story. As Jim Moffet, Christopher Lawford gives the key performance.

Marc S. gave it a10:
The charm and determination of a magnificent gentleman is brought to life by Anthony Hopkins. A friend who lives in Invercargill, when I asked him about how realistic the movie was, replied, ".... as a teenager I saw a number of his speed record attempts at Oreti Beach (the beach scenes) on that amazing bike. The bike/s are still displayed in Invercargill. Our city's motto was 'City of water and light' but after the film has changed to 'Where dreams come true'. Bert was a lot slimmer than Anthony - they got the character spot-on by all accounts."

Mark B. gave it a9:
Writer-director Roger Donaldson's hugely affectionate, admiring portrait of New Zealand folk hero Burt Munro (Anthony Hopkins), a senior citizen who follows his dream to set the motorcycle land speed record at the Bonneville (Utah) Flats, zooms along a very simple path. Munro charms New Zealand neighbors (including the ones next door whom he normally annoys with his noisy midnight tune-ups and unkempt lawn). Munro travels to USA and charms everyone he meets. (Well, almost everyone.) Munro makes it to Bonneville and charms all the other racers. Munro...well, you get my drift, but chances are excellent that while you're actually watching the movie, you either won't notice how prdictable much of it is or you'll be smiling too much to care. Transport Rocky Balboa to the other side of the globe, set the time machine back to the early 1960s, saddle him with a neverending series of financial obstacles and health problems (to say nothing of the title vehicle, a 1920 model kept alive and roaring with equal amounts of tinkering and TLC), and you've got this ceaselessly delightful tribute to Munro's can-do spirit. It's a real comeback for Donaldson, Munro's talented countryman who, after doing the powerful, promising domestic drama Smash Palace in his homeland, traveled stateside and, following a few respectable productions like The Bounty (an account of the famous mutiny featuring Hopkins' evenhanded, everyone-has-his-reasons interpretation of the notorious Captain Bligh) sunk deeper and deeper into the mire, churning out some of the worst junk of the 1980s and 90s (Cocktail, White Sands, the original Species and the Basinger-Baldwin remake of Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway). His Bay of Pigs historical drama Thirteen Days was a few steps up (even if it DID imply that Kevin Costner solved the whole Cuban missile crisis by himself, with maybe a little help from President John F. Kennedy), but Donaldson's deep and obvious love for his subject here appears to have bought him his soul back. After recently seeing Transamerica I complained that the road movie was, for the most part, an overused, moribund genre that needs to be gently put to rest...but Donaldson has made me eat my words. Munro's travels from Los Angeles to Utah work delightfully because Donaldson doesn't overplay his hand (even with the passenger who's involved in a new military adventure in a place called Vietnam)...he just tells the story of a very nice man who meets a lot of different people and brings out THEIR internal niceness. Of course, it helps to build your movie around such an engaging central character whose effect on others is so readily understandable: Munro is a blissfully uncomplicated soul who's so comfortable within his own skin (it's mentioned repeatedly that he neither smokes nor drinks, but then he doesn't NEED to) that he effortlessly breaks down other people's defenses. (In more ways than one, too: he gets two extremely attractive older women into bed--or more probably, they get HIM into bed--and I strongly suspect that some of the younger ladies at Bonneville would've happily given him a go if they hadn't had husbands or boyfriends around.) Although not as prolific a year for screen biographies as 2004 was, 2005 certainly had its share of good ones: I'm as big a fan of Walk the Line and Good Night, and Good Luck as most (and slightly less of one on Capote, a somewhat sluggishly directed film powered mostly by spectacular performances), but the two that resonated the most with me--now and I'm sure years from now, too--were The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, about 1950s housewife and contest winner Evelyn Ryan, who juggles a houseful of kids and a reprobate husband, and this. I'm completely convinced that both movies, dealing as they do with hugely appealing, plucky and uncomplicated individuals who repeatedly beat the odds with great mental toughness, would've been tremendous word-of-mouth populist hits (and garnered Hopkins and Prize Winner star Julianne Moore Oscar nominations that I thought they were completely robbed of) if the producers had only done the Oprah circuit a la My Big Fat Greek wedding rather than relegated them to big-city arthouses. (Nearly everyone I know who saw either or both films loved them.) Then again, maybe all those Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins motivational tapes I listened to as part of my sales job ten years ago finally kicked in!

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