The World's Fastest Indian

Director: Roger Donaldson
Year Released: 2005
Rating: 2.0

Fictionalized account of the life of Burt Munro - or, the later years, anyway - and his quest to take his customized Indian motorcycle to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah to race and see if it's the fastest bike in the world. The huge gaping middle of the movie - with Burt in Los Angeles - is a tired fish-out-of-water story, complete with cross-dressers, hitchhiking Marines on furlough, actual Indians and aging hippies, only to be redeemed slightly by the ending, which features some interesting footage of the Salt Flats and racing. It's Anthony Hopkins who warrants applause for keeping this from being completely forgettable, turning Munro's aging eccentric - who pees on his lemon tree to 'fertilize it' and lives in a shed - into an underdog worth applauding.