Watched the 2005 Anthony Hopkins movie The World’s Fastest Indian tonight. Pretty good, although a bit slow in the middle. This is the story of Burt Munro, the guy from New Zealand who built and rebuilt his 1920’s Indian motorcycle to conquer the world of speed – first in NZ, then in Utah, USA at the Bonneville Salt Flats, in the late 60’s. The movie doesn’t really dwell on about 90% of his life – it concentrates on his quest for speed at Bonneville and the many obstacles (money, logistics and other various pitfalls along the way) he faced in getting there, getting to run and setting several new world records.

Anthony Hopkins is pretty good and believable as Burt Munro – he plays it pretty minimalist, though and sometimes it’s hard to understand him – not sure how accurate his NZ accent is, but whatevs. The speed runs at Bonneville and elsewhere he does on that crazy old motorbike are very well done and really give you a sense of how it must have seemed to drive at that speed (close to 200pmh) with little to no protection (he had almost no brakes, no protective gear save a helmet and no drag chute, at least in the runs depicted here). There isn’t really much character development of any note here – the story (like the man depicted) is solely focused on speed, speed, speed. But it’s interesting to note from Wikipedia that many of Bert’s records are still standing to this day.

The DVD includes a separate, older documentary of sorts from 1971 with the real Burt Munro in it – while it could have been at least a half-hour shorter, it’s interesting to watch and you can see the 2005 film pretty much nails the character and his quest spot on. Ultimately, ‘TWFI’ is an entertaining and inspiring adult holiday movie to watch if you get the chance.

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