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Simply Perfect

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

For some reason, I find the biographical or historical films increasingly less palatable. Most of the times, I think it would have been more interesting to watch a documentary about the subject, instead of a dramatization necessarily altered in order to be adjusted to the rigid rules of commercial cinema. This doesn't mean that all the biographical or historical films are bad; on the opposite, there are various films which deserve to be appreciated due to their detailed manufacture and honest feelings... but for every Philomena or Dallas Buyers Club, there are too many mediocre films, whose good intentions aren't enough to compensate the absence of that indescribable narrative magic which would make them superior to a simple History lesson. Unfortunately, I think the film Cesar Chavez fits into that category: it's well acted, competently produced and it offers a relevant subject which deserves to be known... and however, it lacks of the necessary energy and conviction to make it transcend its artificiality. Anyway, I think Michael Peña brings a solid and charismatic performance in the leading role, and the cinematography and the setting efficiently transport us to the time in which the story happened; however, Diego Luna's direction feels insipid, and the screenplay has too many repetitive scenes which end up tiring a bit. Regarding the historical veracity, Cesar Chavez occasionally suffers from "blind love" for its main character, making him too perfect and losing some humanity in the process. Besides, the omission of certain details seem very convenient, such as Chávez's rejection for Mexican immigrants and the campaigns he made against "the wet ones". That might have been the dramatic challenge this film would have needed in order to be memorable: portray practices we would consider politically incorrect nowadays, and then explain us why they were logical and even beneficial for Chávez's cause. In conclusion, I think I can give a slight recommendation to Cesar Chavez, because it managed to keep me moderately interested. However, it didn't leave me very satisfied, and I would have preferred to watch a good documentary about this hero.

Not surprising, given its subject matter, the movie "Cesar Chavez" is both inspiring and depressing in roughly equal measure - depressing because it portrays a society sadly built on the exploitation of the disenfranchised and powerless, and inspiring because it reminds us of the power of both the individual and the collective to change the course of history for the better.In terms of structure and execution, this is a fairly standard biopic of the man whose name has become virtually synonymous with collective bargaining and civil rights. The movie begins when Chavez is already a family man, working as an organizer for a Latino civil rights group, the Community Service Organization. We're briefly informed of the fact that Chavez was born in Yuma, Arizona, but that, as a child, he was forced to migrate to California when his family lost their farm in the depths of the Depression. The trauma of being ripped away from the land he loved and compelled to work as a laborer in the field for virtually no money never left Chavez and, indeed, it became the defining force of his life. Thus, he returned to those fields years later for the purpose of organizing his fellow workers into a union (eventually to be known as United Farm Workers), taking on the massive power structure that, through a combination of greed and racism, kept them virtually enslaved to their masters. What strikes one most while watching "Cesar Chavez" is the tremendous courage displayed not only by Chavez and his family but all the workers in standing up to the verbal abuse, physical violence, racism, jail time and threatened loss of employment that was regularly thrown at them in an effort to get them to back down and accept their inhumane working conditions without question or complaint. When striking didn't get them what they wanted, they turned toward mass marches and boycotts, the latter of which was particularly effective in winning the general public to their side and eventually bringing the growers to the bargaining table and ultimately acceding to their demands - no easy task given that many of the local politicians, law enforcement officials and judges were already in the pocket of the wealthy growers. Luckily, the movement also boasted some powerful allies from around the country, i.e., politicians like Senator Robert Kennedy and the United Auto Workers Union. The movie also captures the fact that Chavez frequently had to contend with members of his own group who often felt that passive resistance was inefficient in achieving their goals and wanted to employ more direct and violent methods in taking on their oppressors. Like many movies that attempt to capture the totality of a famous person's life, "Cesar Chavez" often falls short of the mark. Because the movie's running time is so limited, certain aspects of Chavez' life inevitably get short shrift. The relationships with his wife and long time partner, Helen (well played by America Ferrera), and with his oldest son are sketchy at best. Famed union activist Dolores Huerta (Rosario Dawson), who worked beside Chavez in many of his endeavors, tends to get shuffled into the background a bit more than is warranted given the prominent role she played, an obvious casualty to the limits of time. Michael Pena bears an impressive physical resemblance to Chavez, but he lacks the fire-in-the-belly necessary to convey the true essence of a man who inspired millions and changed the world. John Malkovich, on the other hand, effectively portrays an unsympathetic grape-grower without resorting to overstatement and caricature.Writer Keir Pearson and director Diego Luna faced a daunting task in bringing Chavez' story to the screen. That they only half succeeded is perhaps more inevitable than it is regrettable given the self-imposed constraints of the medium they were working in (a TV miniseries might have given the subject more justice). But anyone with an interest in Chavez in particular and the fight for human rights in general should definitely watch this film.

I first learned of César Chávez when he died in 1993, and over the years I learned about his activism for the rights of farm workers. Diego Luna's "Cesar Chavez" focuses mainly on Chávez's activism while also looking at how he tried to maintain loyalty to his family. The movie covers his 1960s activism, so I would've liked to see some focus on his activism after that period*, but the movie does a good job with its focus. There is no doubt that César Chávez is one of the most heroic figures in US history, alongside Martin Luther King Jr. Michael Peña (as César), America Ferrera (as his wife Helen), Rosario Dawson (as Dolores Huerta), John Malkovich (as a grape-grower who tries to rally opposition to Chávez) and the rest of the cast play their roles perfectly. This movie deserves an Oscar nomination, or multiple nominations.*Helen Chávez and Dolores Huerta have continued the activism since César's death.

The movie in its way distorts the Cesar's Chavez and his impacts. No doubt Chavez was a charismatic figure and because of that Big Labor used him to create the UFW. Chavez was Labor's puppet. He did what they wanted him to do. He was non-violent because Labor did not want violence. To Big Labor violence was something that belonged to the commies and Labor didn't want violence to characterize their efforts to create another cash cow in a farm workers union. So Labor manipulated Chavez and because he saw the benefits of being Labor's stooge, he went along with it. Not that he didn't also believe that it would benefit his beloved farm workers too. Without the backing of big labor, Chavez would have gone nowhere. He was poorly educated, almost an illiterate itinerant. But to his credit he listened to Big Labor and he succeeded. It was Big Labor that had the power in Sacramento and with the government, not Chavez. However, Chavez's claims of success are somewhat dimmed by the fact that while it successfully with the help of Big Labor did get some reforms enacted into law, members of the UFW get socked for dues that support well paid union executives that have in the end delivered little for the workers. And many farm workers still don't belong to the UFW which they do not see any reason to belong to.Unfortunately, the movie is very selective in what it portrays of Chavez so as not to diminish his image. Hopefully someday someone will write the true story of Chavez and bring it to the screen so the public can form its own judgment concerning his importance to Latinos.