NewMexiKen watched the DVD of the Anthony Hopkins film The World’s Fastest Indian last evening and found it totally enjoyable. The film tells the true story of Burt Munro, a sixty-something grandfather from New Zealand, who set speed records in the 1960s with a rebuilt 1920 Indian motorcycle — or, as he says, “motorsicle.” Hopkins is terrific as a nitro-pill taking, eccentric, hard-of-hearing, muddled, but obsessed and endearing codger. Most of the people he meets between Invercargill (“we sometimes spell it with just one l to save ink”) and Bonneville are endearing too.
Tom: Aren’t you scared you’ll kill yourself if you crash?
Burt Munro: No … You live more in five minutes on a bike like this going flat out than some people live in a lifetime.