OK, I'll say it...

Rating: 2/10 (4 February 2014)

I've been in the industry for almost 20 years and I had to create an account to say this: This movie was bad. This was a bad movie. This script should have never seen a screen the way it stands. I don't know if Steve McQueen or someone else screwed with it so much that it no longer worked, but someone murdered this script.
Characters appear and disappear for no reason. Plot lines are thrown in, rolled around and pulled out. Then there is the miracle ending that's not foreshadowed in any way - a total Hail Mary - like the producers suddenly said: 'Yo, Stevie, you're sitting at over 2 hours... End the thing already before we run out of cash.' Ugh... Never have God (or his human counterpart, Brad Pitt) save your movie in the last 10 minutes. That's first-year film school stuff.
I was hoping for a film like 2001's Conspiracy (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266425/) but instead I got this. What a total shame. This story should have been a masterpiece. It should have been a classic.
The only reason I don't give this movie a 1 is because it is beautifully shot. It betrays a grade-school-level interpretation of history (Northerners were beautiful and cultured while Southerners were drunk whore-mongers who rolled around with pigs), but at least it was nice to look at.