Amistad (1997) 3 1/2 stars out of 4. Starring Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, Anthony Hopkins and Morgan Freeman. Directed by Steven Spielberg.
The first scene is an extreme close-up of a man's sweaty face as he struggles mightily to loosen a bolt.
You neither know who the man is nor the reason for his actions.
In quick succession, the man successfully loosens the bolt, frees himself from shackles and then frees others, who gather weapons, attack the crew of the ship on which they are being held and capture the ship after a short, but bloody, skirmish.
These are the opening images of Amistad, Steven Spielberg's film based on a little-known event in American history.
The year is 1839 and 53 kidnapped Africans are being transported from Cuba to begin lives as slaves in America.
After their shipboard revolt, the Africans spare two crew members and order them to turn the ship east and head back to Africa. During the day, the sailors steer into the sun, but at night, when their captors sleep, the sailors turn the ship toward North America.
Eventually, the ship winds up off the coast of Long Island, where a U.S. naval vessel captures the Africans.
Brought to trial in the United States, the Africans are charged with murder. However, the situation becomes a political tinderbox as the Spanish government claims them as property and wants them returned.
The whirlwind that surrounds this event eventually lands at the doorstep of the U.S. Supreme Court, and involves an incumbent president, Martin Van Buren, and a former chief executive, John Quincy Adams.
Amistad is an earnest examination of one race's fight for their rights and their freedom. Led by Cinque (Djimon Hounsou), the Africans are confused and frightened by the international uproar they have unwittingly created. Yet, they only want one thing - to go home.
Coming to their defense is a property lawyer, Roger Baldwin (Matthew McConaughey), whose initial success in winning the Africans their freedom is sabotaged for political expediency by President Van Buren's minions.
A reluctant and retired Adams (Anthony Hopkins) must then present their case before the Supreme Court, seven of whose nine justices are Southerners.
This sounds like rather dry material for movie fare, but Spielberg gives it a deep emotional core. He makes you care about these uprooted people and their wretched plight. You do more than pity them - you root and pray for their success.
The heart of the picture is Cinque. Newcomer Hounsou, a former model whose previous acting experience includes a Janet Jackson music video, gives a towering performance.
A man of great strength and dignity, Cinque finds it difficult to grasp the various complications and ramifications being woven around him and his fellow Africans. To Cinque, there is only right or wrong, justice and injustice.
Hounsou learned the Mende dialect of West Africa for his role. And though he speaks an unfamiliar tongue, Hounsou is able to display Cinque's courage, as well as his vulnerability.
McConaughey is adequate as Baldwin. Even though his New England accent comes and goes, he captures the lawyer's passion and fire to do his best for his clients.
Hopkins, as Adams, buried under old-man makeup, reveals the spark and righteousness that age could not dim.
Morgan Freeman, however, is given little to do as leader of the abolitionists who adopt the Africans' cause as their own.
Spielberg's strength, as it was in Schindler's List, is showing the cruelty one human being can inflict upon another. His recreation of the Middle Passage, the deadly journey that transported captured Africans from their homeland across the Atlantic, is as harrowing and horrifying a series of images as ever put on film.
And, to his credit, Spielberg has not fallen into the trap of other filmmakers who have told black history from a white person's viewpoint. Most of the story and much of the action is told and shown through the eyes of Cinque and his people.
In a film in which the lines between right and wrong, good and evil, seem defined, Spielberg and screenwriter David Franzoni do not stoop to stereotypical villains to further their cause.
His antagonists are not villains, per se, but rather flawed men who value political expediency above morality. They are amoral politicians who feel they are doing what they must to preserve their country.
Amistad has its slow moments. Overall, though, it is a riveting examination of a piece of American history ignored in the textbooks. But it makes a powerful statement about the value of freedom.
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, Ind. He can be reached by e-mail at bloom@journal-courier.com or cbloom@iquest.net
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews