It feels like a lot has happened in the two weeks since I watched this movie. But the warm fuzzy feeling of The World’s Fastest Indian still lingers.

I am not too sure what made this movie leave such a warm lasting presence on me, maybe when I watched it, I just felt like a Kiwi among Kiwi’s or maybe it really was “One Hell of a Good True Story”. Whatever, it rates very highly in my list of recently watched movies.

The story is about a Southlander call Burt Munro. The Burt in the movies seems to be a little eccentric and majorly lovable. He buys and old Indian motorbike, tweaks it a little and wins a land speed record on it. The movie is based on a true story, though there seems to have been a few extra characters thrown in for good measure.

I relate to the story and particularly the Burt character, because his experiences as a Kiwi abroad seem to be so stereotypically similar to my own and probably similar to countless other OE’ed Kiwi’s.

Though I cannot help but think his Southland accent and especially his R’s were slightly screwed up, Anthony Hopkins really did an excellent job. He really portrayed the naivety, simplicity and slackness of Kiwi culture well. He reminded me of a few neighbours and friends.

I really enjoyed the acting of Chris Williams. Chris played the role of a rather endearing and helpful transsexual called Tina. Though his resent movie Dodge Ball was fairly terrible. Annie Whittle also stared well as the compassionate and almost gentle girlfriend of Burt’s. Thirteen year old Aaron Murphy who either played the roll of Tom or Sam. It all depends on what version of the dismal TWFI’s websites you read. Whatever, his acting was good and he played another of the cast’s lovable characters.

The extra characters didn’t interest me that much; I thought the movie possibly could have done without them, though they did keep this road movie moving. I would have loved to have seen a little more, well actually anything about his trip home. This is not just a boy’s motorbike movie. Women hire it, buy it, you will enjoy it as well!

Well done Antony, Chris, Annie, Aaron and the many extra’s for making an average and interesting road story into a very good and well worth watching “hell of a good true story”
7 out of 10.

Oh check out this Burt Munro info page.