Mediocre

Rating: 4/10 (29 April 2015)

I must have watched a totally different film to every body else. Solomon Walthop is a free man living in Saratoga. He travels to Washington, where he is known to polite society. He meets up with two Gentlemen, who invite him out to dinner and get him drunk. He is sick everywhere. Next thing, you see him in shackles and in a dungeon. he is beaten and you find out, that he has been kidnapped and sold into slavery. So far i find the film interesting. Then for 1 hour and 50 minutes you watch people being whipped, beaten, hanged and a black slave crying throughout the film. all the white people, with the exception of the slaver Ford and the Canadian Abolishinist, played by Brad Pitt, look as if they are portraying the character Simon Le Green from Uncle Toms Cabin and Pitt who is supposed to be playing a Canadian, sounds more like Patrick Swayze out of North And South, which in my opinion is the best ever depiction of that period. A story like this cannot be told in a couple of hours anyway. A far superior film to this was Amistad by Spielberg, which was also based on a true story. Yes you see whippings, but you see the the taking over of the ship and then the court proceedings. In this film you only know what happened to the bad guys at the end credits. My opinion is this was like a rehash of two other terrible movies based on two very good books, Mandingo and Drum, also with fine actors and actresses. Although this one is better made. Very disappointing.