Good, but not perfect like some say.

Rating: 7/10 (15 February 2014)

I finally got around to watching 12 Years A Slave after hearing all these great things about it. I have to say I was a little bit disappointed, I was expecting more from the film. It is brutal to watch. Its graphic in its brutality, violence and de- humanization of slaves. The movie goes there and a lot of the scenes were hard to watch both because of the honest performances and the fact that this is a part of our history. I will never be able to understand how people could side with slavery in the free world much less with the horrible treatment of blacks during this time. Its disgusting. On the technical side, this is a fantastic movie. The direction, acting, cinematography and set design was beautifully done. The actors were all committed to telling this story and everyone gave commendable performances. For me the standout was Michael Fassbender, who played the sadistic slave owner Epps with such abhorrent charisma. But the story was lacking, it simply wasn't that strong. It took me a while to get used to the erratic timeline of the film that flips between the past and present. To me this is a story that exists as a showcase for the hardships of Solomon and the slaves. It was as if the film was solely focused on emphasizing the horrors of that time and it didn't pay much attention to clever writing tropes, which is understandable given the subject matter. Though it succeeded in bringing to life the disgusting treatment of blacks by whites during slavery, it was lacking in something more. 12 Years A Slave is a movie that everyone should watch, excluding young kids unless they want to be traumatized, because it is history and its something that people need to remember especially given the fact that racism still exists. But in my opinion it just isn't that amazing of a film. Maybe if the script was better, tighter, then I think I would love this film more. But to me its just a lesser version of Schindler's List.