A powerful movie that brings in new light to the dark topic of slavery.

Rating: 9/10 (11 January 2014)

12 Years a Slave is indeed a very powerful movie. Directed by Steve McQueen, and written by John Ridley, the movie is an adaptation of the 1853 autobiography by Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a New York State-born free man who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. in 1841 and sold into slavery in the South. Chiwetel Ejiofor did a great job, acting as Solomon Northup, and it wouldn't surprise me, if he wins a couple of awards for it. The supporting cast is just as amazing. I give mad props to both Benedict Cumberbatch, and Michael Fassbender for their performance as plantation owner, beloved William Ford and crude Edwin Epps. There are too many powerful performances scenes to count, but I had to choice some, it would be, the scene where Solomon is nearly lynch by John Tibeats (Paul Dano) and he is just hanging out there, while the other slaves couldn't do anything about it. Last is the trials and misfortune of Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o) with her being abuse by both Epps and his evil wife played by Sarah Paulsen. The movie doesn't have too much over the top moments, and seem very accurate. The movie puts a lot of insight, you wouldn't see in much modern movies today. First off, there is the good heart, slave owner William Ford. You would never see that in any other movie, as movies about slavery have all slave owners as a crude one-dimension evil human beings. Second off, you wouldn't see a white field hand (Garret Dillahunt) working besides the slaves in other films. To accurately depict the time period of the film, the filmmakers did a great job capturing the language, the look, and locations of the time. Still, the film did take artistic license, and create some new drama like the scene where a sailor kill a slave. One thing, I didn't like about the film is some of the music. Don't get me wrong, I found the songs, Roll Jordan Roll, and the classical American folk music great, but the soundtrack by Han Zimmer is kinda sound not new. Most of the emotional music being play in the background, remind me too much of 'Time' from Han Zimmer's 2010 soundtrack for the film, 'Inception'. It's seem recycled. Another thing that is bothering people is the flow of the film over the 12 years. It seems to go, really quick over the years. When he was kidnapped in the beginning, his children were kids and he looked about mid 30's. Throughout the movie he doesn't look any older at all or aged. The point is, they could have done was to add the age look for the characters because you can't tell that 12 years are going by or let us know that time is passing by. But it didn't feel like 12 years for me. It more felt like a matter of about 4 months. Maybe if they had showed seasons changing or done makeup on the actors to show them getting older it would have been better. About the brutality of the film, it was there, it wasn't too gruesome in my opinion. It was a lot harder to watch 1997's Amistad than this. I wouldn't say, this movie is for all audience, but I do agree, young mature adults should watch it. I don't find the movie, putting a white guilt to anybody, nor do I say, this is a movie trying to start hatred against whites for their ancestor mistakes. If anything, it is part of the healing process, for the most part, I found myself, not anger, but understanding what people went through back then. Most black audiences would agree with me. I have to say, all people of every race need to see this film, even if it's not teaching you anything new that you don't already know. The reason why people should see this film is indeed, while slavery seems like old practice, it still acts upon the modern world through sex trade, and the misused of illegal workers. Such modern sense of slavery need to quickly end. Indeed, if you like this movie, do check out, 1984's TV movie, Solomon Northup's Odyssey starting Avery Brooks. It's well done as well. Overall: While it did had a limited release, it is a must watch.