Not Enough Yet Too Much

Rating: 5/10 (25 October 2013)

The best thing about 12 YEARS A SLAVE is Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup, a free man from New York who was abducted and sold into slavery... With limitless potential, the African American actor deserves this starring role. The worst thing is he's mostly stuck providing reactions to other characters ranging from beaten slaves to formidable slavers.
Director Steve McQueen (who should add a middle initial) might have been influenced by Spielberg's holocaust epic SCHINDLER'S LIST There is already a score of comparisons between both films. What's missing in 12 YEARS are the reasons and/or motivations for showing the atrocities other than being a true story about the infamous Antebellum South.
In LIST, Ralph Fiennes's Goeth commits random acts of unfathomable violence that are not only examples of Nazi rule, but cause the protagonists to counterbalance in a mental game of cat and mouse. All Northup's left to do is witness the maniacal madness of Michael Fassbender's sexually-driven plantation owner after surviving over-the-top henchman played by Paul Dano and Paul Giamatti.
While it's ultimately moving and historically significant, and Ejiofor does have moments to rise above the increasing and unceasing torment, Solomon Northup's 12-year sentence feels more like a single prolonged scene with various actors and locations than a multi-layered biopic for the audience to get completely lost in.