The World's Fastest Indian (2005)

The World's Fastest Indian concerns Burt Munro, an Invercargill eccentric with a modified 1920 Indian Scout, a lemon tree he waters in his own fashion, and a persistent dream of the Bonneville Salt Flats. Roger Donaldson spent two decades getting this made, and the patience shows in the texture: exploded pistons, a Vauxhall Velox, the flat vowels of Southland. Anthony Hopkins does not attempt a New Zealand accent, a decision the national press noticed at the time, but he inhabits the backyard genius with an ease that suggests the role required very little heavy lifting. The film proceeds as such films do, one kindly stranger at a time, until the salt flats arrive and the officials relent.

On the cultural ledger, the results are modest and mostly incidental. The cast is overwhelmingly white, though a Native American man named Jake, a Hispanic car salesman named Fernando, and a transgender motel clerk named Tina Washington all pass through Burt's journey as helpers rather than exhibits. Tina is the notable one, a warm and dignified presence in a mainstream 2005 release, assisting with customs and the purchase of a used Chevrolet. None of this is argued. It simply happens, which is its own kind of restraint. There is no feminist thesis here, no racial argument, no environmental sermon, no critique of the moneyed men who administer the racing bureaucracy, and no interest whatsoever in the body or the mind as topics of instruction.

History, meanwhile, receives the usual biopic sanding. The Bonneville visit is a composite of several trips. The 201 mph record is invented. The lemon tree is a tribute to the director's own father. These are the ordinary liberties of the form, not a re-education. What the film offers instead is a genial, unpretentious underdog story that trusts warmth over instruction, and asks nothing of us beyond two hours of goodwill.