a review by Jeffrey Overstreet
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Director- Steven Spielberg
Writer – David Franzoni
Director of photography – Janusz Kaminski
Editor – Michael Kahn
Music by John Williams
Production designer, Rick Carter
Producers – Steven Spielberg, Debbie Allen and Colin Wilson
Dreamworks SKG. 150 minutes. Rated R.
STARRING: Morgan Freeman (Joadson), Nigel Hawthorne (President Martin Van Buren), Anthony Hopkins (John Quincy Adams), Djimon Hounsou (Cinque), Matthew McConaughey (Baldwin), David Paymer (Secretary of State John Forsyth), Pete Postlethwaite (Holabird), Stellan Skarsgard (Tappan), Razaaq Adoti (Yamba), Abu Bakaar Fofanah (Fala) and Anna Paquin (Queen Isabella).
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It’s probably politically incorrect for me to do anything but praise this movie. After all, it is one of the boldest cinematic portrayals of the plight of American slaves ever filmed. And it was directed by Steven Spielberg, who brought such a powerful testament of the nightmares of the holocaust to the screen in Schindler’s List. It stars a panoply of fine, distinguished actors. The stage is set for an American classic.
Unfortunately, I can’t give Amistad a glowing review. Many of the things that made Schindler’s deserving of all its accolades are missing from this incomplete movie.
The film’s strengths are many. Djimon Hounsou, a promising actor in an important debut, gives a strong breakthrough performance as Cinque, the African who rises to represent his fellow captives. The attention to historical detail is impressive. Courtroom scenes avoid Hollywood legal arena clichés.
And above all, there’s Anthony Hopkins. In his performance as former President John Quincy Adams, Hopkins proves why he is one of the greatest screen actors working today. Most audiences would flinch at the idea of a movie’s finale consisting of one long philosophy-heavy speech, but Hopkins, as the unsteady, deep-thinking, quirky master orator, brings the viewer to the edge of his seat, makes us hang on his every word. He’s brilliant. But neither character carries the film the way Liam Neeson’s troubled German carried Schindler’s List.
The rest of the cast are less than brilliant, and some are miscast entirely.
Matthew McConaughey is forgettable as the lawyer who seeks to help the slaves against all odds. He doesn’t embarrass himself, but he’s only required to look determined and throw a couple of temper tantrums.
Morgan Freeman looks like he was handed his lines, coached through his scenes (“Look solemn and stand in the back of the room, Morgan. Okay, now look deeply moved by what you’re watching. Now, smile.”), and then went home.
Others — Nigel Hawthorne, Pete Postlethwaite, Anna Paquin, Stellan Skarsgard — are equally distinguished and equally underused. Why cast such important actors in such brief, bland parts?
Even Hounsou is the victim of bad scripting. In the first half, we see him get angry, yell a lot, and make his eyes very very big like an African Mel Gibson; then in the second act he reveals his story, his terrifying memories, and we learn about what he left behind and why the others respect him.
The slaves remain an anonymous bunch from beginning to end, unlike the living personalities of the Jews in Schindler’s List. We’re expected to feel for them. Look at the atrocities they endured! Look at what a strange and disorienting world they find themselves trapped in! And indeed, their sufferings are great. But the same lessons could have been taught by a PBS documentary. One character informs the attorney that the winner in court will be the one who tells “the best story”. Spielberg should have taken that advice.
The screenplay gives so much attention to the legal complications of freeing the slaves that we don’t have time to develop more than mere sympathy for them. Hollywood’s master storyteller seemed confused about which story he was telling. He moves so fast and so frequently between different contexts that we never find our balance. More character development, please, Mr. Spielberg… even if it means a longer movie!
Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski brings alive scenes of the slaves’ escape from their chains on the nightmarish sea journey. In the opening minute of the film, sweat on a slave’s forehead glistens like stars in a night sky. But the courtroom scenes are filmed through a murky lens, so the Supreme Court members’ heads glow with silver halos but the rest of the room is drab and shadowed. It is an interesting approach, but dulls the drama of these scenes.
Worst of all is the pompous overbearing nature of John Williams’ soundtrack. It’s as if at the beginning of each scene he must announce “This is going to be rough! Hang on!” or “This is tragic! Get out your hankies!” He’s never been so unnecessarily melodramatic. Some silence would have been nice. Spielberg restrained him in Schindler’s List, and as a result the soundtrack was powerful, enhancing rather than dominating. But the final minutes of the film, as Spielberg directs an embarrassingly sentimental farewell to Williams’ euphoric crescendo, are inappropriately reminiscent of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.
In spite of its flaws, Amistad is an important movie for two reasons. First, for Anthony Hopkins’ climactic speech. It will ring in the memory long after the movie’s particulars are forgotten. And second, for the gospel. In one profound scene, a slave browses the Bible and, from the pictures, follows the story of a holy man who suffered much, was executed, returned from the dead, and showed tormented souls the way to the kingdom of God. The slave finds hope in Jesus without having heard a single sermon. Through the rest of his personal sufferings, he notices the cross in things all around him, and it brings him a powerful hope. This is the most straightforward, understated, and powerful big-screen representation of the gospel in recent movie history.
And for that, Amistad should be recommended to everyone.