THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN

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Speed Fulfills
Anthony Hopkins Takes His Career To The Limit
By Cole Smithey 

Writer/director Roger Donaldson ("Thirteen Days") comes full circle on the subject of his 1971 documentary "Offerings To The God Of Speed," about Bert Munro, the elderly New Zealand motorcycle enthusiast. Munro famously took his modified 1920 Indian Scout to the Bonneville Salt Flats to break speed records.

Anthony Hopkins teams up with Roger Donaldson for the first time since their work together on "The Bounty" (1984).

Here Hopkins gives an impassioned performance as Munro that sits snugly against the actor's canon of brilliantly devised character studies. Hopkins transports a simple story about an aging man with an ageless dream into the stuff of legend.

"The World's Fastest Indian" exists in a hermetic bubble of wide-eyed school boy charm that Donaldson projects with fastidious attention to Bert's deep-rooted relationship with his motorcycle.

From the opening scene of the movie when Bert revs his bike's earsplitting engine to the dismay of his sleeping neighbors, Donaldson announces Bert's quirky passion. The linear road story that follows serves as a steady rhythm over which Anthony Hopkins embellishes his role with subtle nuance and gentle charisma. As we learn more about Bert's idiosyncratic nature, the movie gains weight as a meditation on fulfilling dreams regardless of age.

Bert's most loyal believer is a young New Zealand neighbor boy who shares Bert's contagious brand of youthful excitement for the mysteries of motorcycle mechanics. Bert's endearing nature attracts strangers to help him along the way on his quest to test the limitations of his personally modified motorcycle at Bonneville.

From the ship's captain who ferries Bert and his bike to America in exchange for his cooking, to a transvestite motel clerk in Hollywood, to the racers at Bonneville who make sure Bert gets his big chance, the audience gets swept up in the magnetic charm that Hopkins projects.

Anthony Hopkins has said that he will not return to any "Silence Of The Lambs" sequels, and it seems fitting that the man that London's Old Vic Theater voted as the greatest British actor of all time should choose his roles for interior aspects close to the actor's own.

For as gratifying as it was to be scared witless by Hopkins's roles in horror films like the unforgettable "Magic" (1978), it is especially enjoyable to see his inner light shine through his pale blue eyes as a man savoring every second of his earthbound existence. "The World's Fastest Indian" puts Anthony Hopkins in the rarefied dramatic air that he belongs.

Rated PG-13. 127 min.