Diego Luna’s Cesar Chavez glosses over some rather important aspects of the underlying essence of its subject matter. Although admirable in taking the course of the biopic Lincoln versus, say Mandela, in keeping its scope focused on a narrow swath of time, it fails to go deep in portraying the great 1960s labor organizer. Namely, what Chavez accomplished from the standpoint of his persuasive skills and how they affected the decision-making of the scores of common laborers. It was they who kept up a five-year United Farm Workers strike while Chavez instigated a massive boycott of Central California grape growers’ products. It would have been nice to have been a party to the psychological challenges a few of these laborers faced in deciding to risk all for an unknown result. They may have been making only $2 a day but their decision to give that up wasn’t easy.
Michael Pena, steadily effective as a character actor, and coming off his finest performance in End of Watch, holds down the role of Chavez well enough for most of the film but it seems he never snaps back to normal after his 25-day hunger strike. A lot of the movie is spent showing the abusive injustices local law enforcement and townspeople inflict on the strikers. They get insecticide sprayed on them. They get run over with pickup trucks. They get shot at. Once a few of the strikers lose control and fight back, the normally placid Chavez loses his temper and vows to stop eating until his union members sign a pledge of non-violence. Robert Kennedy (Jack Holmes) gets involved in support of Chavez. Ronald Reagan takes over the governorship of California and sides with the growers, calling the workers actions “immoral.” Richard Nixon gets elected president and calls up grape honcho Bogdonovich (John Malkovich) to let him know the union can boycott all they want, the grapes will just be sold in Europe and the rest bought up by the Defense Department. Chavez takes his boycott to Europe and the rest is history.
Rosario Dawson is sadly underused as Chavez’s fellow organizer. America Ferrera plays his wife and mother of their eight kids. A lot of shots focus on their three-bedroom shack of a bungalow. A subplot concerning Chavez’s strained relationship with his oldest son Fernando seems to go on forever. Right-wingers are complaining the film leaves out Chavez’s considerably less than liberal view of immigration as if that ought to be a focus here. I would rather the film have spent more time showing how so many ordinary consumers were convinced to boycott.
When the interspersed black-and-white documentary footage outshines the dramatic main body of the film, it begs the question whether an upcoming documentary on Chavez might not better get to the core of his outstanding work in advancing the severely depressed lot of an exploited minority. Labor may be going through some rough times in present day America but the gains made by this great American demonstrate that the unbending will of driven individuals can overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Luna’s film, presented with the difficult challenge of portraying an icon who in real life had little personal charisma, only hints at Chavez’s greatness.