Worthy but MASSIVELY overrated

Rating: 4/10 (26 February 2014)

There is no doubt in my mind that Solomon Northup suffered greatly during the eponymous 12 years he spent as a slave in the Deep South. There is also no doubt that it was an incredibly bleak period of human history that quite rightly shouldn't ever be allowed to be forgotten. Lastly there is also no doubt that everyone involved with this movie (with the exception of Brad Pitt) puts in fantastically believable performances. Standouts for me were Chiwetel Ejiofor (fairly obviously) and especially Micheal Fassbender who gives an absolutely awesome turn as a man who clearly revelled in having the power of life and death over other human beings. Fassbender's performance alone is worthy of the entry price. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of Brad Pitt as the one-and-only "good" white man portrayed in this film, but luckily he's not in the film too long, and his acting is quickly overshadowed by the other towering and nuanced performances on shows.
However, the movie itself is considerably less nuanced in places. The constant onslaught of violence, degradation and misery actually gets a little tiresome after a while, as does the "white man is bad" message that constantly pervades everything. As I say above, there is no doubt it WAS an extremely miserable time for anyone on the receiving end of such treatment from the slavers, but I personally think the movie lost a great deal of its potential impact by relentlessly beating the viewer into submission with its message. Basically I didn't think this movie had anything new to say that hasn't already been said a hundred times before.
The other problem for me was that some sequences were actually quite boring. The director seems to enjoy incredibly long and lingering close-ups in which absolutely nothing happens. One shot of Solomon Northup towards the end of the movie had him staring at nothing while the sound of bee buzzed in the background. I'm sure that shot lasted for over a minute...and absolutely nothing happened at the end of it.
Basically it's a worthy enough film dealing with troubling and powerful subject matter. The only problem is in the execution, but this film will no doubt garner a huge number of awards as the worthiness will outweigh the failings of the film.