Another bulging bandwagon.

Rating: 7/10 (19 January 2014)

When hearing and seeing the reviews for this film flooding in i anxiously awaited it's looming arrival to UK Cinema. I mean the impact it had made on critics was incredible. All sorts of praise; it had to live up to the hype; surely it had to.....even despite the painfully premature proclamation of "film of the year"; it is only January is it not? Or the pretentious pedestal it had placed itself upon as "One of the greatest films EVER". Surely these bold statements had to be backed up.
Well for me it wasn't. And boy was i confused. A film that garnered such acclaim, i mean the Academy Award for (at least)the Best Film Category must already have the title "12 years a slave" etched on it. We are in January and already critics have basically flushed all upcoming movies down the toilet as they seemingly have no chance of competing against such a film. Well i'm sorry but i'm not buying it. I get the topic is one that is heartbreaking and no other event in history could have you shaking your head in absolute disbelief, in horror, at what occurred in the past. Some of the scenes are sickening to watch; to think that human beings could do this to another just because of the color of ones skin is despicable, but it happened; and it is films like this that should be spotlighted, should be applauded for bringing such shameful events to light. To educate people on what happened. But it was missing something. And it is hard to criticise a film based on such events, but for me it was slow, there where many scenes that tried to encapsulate emotion, and have someone just stare into the distance for minutes at a time. And a lot of the scenes where repetitive. As the film was based on a factual story i get that the things that happened are mainly through the eyes of Solomon Northup, but i felt like it didn't fully put across how brutal life was as a slave. Yes there where several scenes that showed brutality; volatile brutality, and i truly do not mean to sound narcissistic but i felt there could have been more examples; there was obviously a lot worse that happened. And i felt it held back;again i must repeat i don't say this as someone who would have loved to have seen more abysmal displays of sadism; i say it at as someone who would have liked history to be shown for what it was.
The acting is great by all; real passion involved with the whole cast...well apart from Brad Pitt; he basically took the accent from his role as Lt. Aldo Raine from "Inglorious Basterds" and unfortunately stapled it onto his role as Bass. But he's not in it for long thankfully. They really all do well. Only thing that seemed out of sync was that sometimes the acting came across very theatrical, like it where a Shakespeare play. Maybe it was meant to be like that; but it didn't do it for me.
One thing that does bug me however, is the publics acceptance of the film. Now last year with the release of "Django Unchained" came a hurricane of unhappiness; people offended by the use of the derogatory and racist dialogue throughout. But now, that a story that is about the same events is based on a true story, I have not heard or seen one disparaging remark on the language that is used in this film. Somehow because it is based on real events it is acceptable to have a film that is full of use of the N word?
That aside, the film for me is not as good as i had been led to believe it was. I think the topic of the film has won more fans than the actual film. I much preferred Django; it may not have been based on real people and had its typical Tarantino-esque madness. But it was also based on the reality of the cruelty of History.
7.5/10