My father was a teenager during the revolution and the ousting of Fulgencio Batista, and I've spent my whole life being told myriad conflicting versions of what things were like then, since, and now. Sometimes that storm of disagreement came from his own conflicted and confused memories of that time in Cuba's history. A fair warning to those who don't know many Cubans: conversations about politics span not only hours, but days. Likewise, those with embedded stakes in Cold War-era politics will debate the most minute of details, and those on both ends of the political spectrum will effortlessly tell you that you don't know "the real truth" about anything.

Regular readers of this column know that on the US political spectrum, I fall definitively left of center. My sympathies regarding the Castro revolution lie with the lower classes of Cuba, and not the wealthy upper class that fled the country with Batista and the majority of the national treasury. I don't condone or support the Castro regime, but I likewise do not support the US taking it over and putting a Starbucks on every corner.

Soderbergh's movie does not deal with the mass executions at La Cabana (which occurred after the events in Part 1), nor does it touch on various moments that subject matter experts consider significant and iconic in Guevara's very full life. I'm fine with that, because those events may be important to those positing their individual take on Guevara's worth as a human being, but not to the narrative they intended here. Che is a chronicle of two military campaigns, and the through-line of how failure inevitably follows success.