Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
The life story of New Zealander Burt Munro, who spent years building a 1920 Indian motorcycle—a bike which helped him set the land-speed world record at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1967.
Anthony Hopkins delivers a career-highlight performance as Burt Munro, bringing warmth, eccentricity, and total conviction to the real-life New Zealand speed dreamer. The plot follows a fairly conventional 'underdog chases dream' arc, but the authenticity of the true story and Hopkins's magnetism elevate it well above formula. Cinematography is competent and captures the Bonneville Salt Flats with appropriate grandeur without being especially inventive. Novelty is moderate — the subject matter (a septuagenarian biker chasing a land-speed record) is genuinely unusual, but the narrative structure is straightforward crowd-pleaser territory. The ending is genuinely moving and triumphant, landing with earned emotional resonance because the journey has been so well-characterized.