Dramatically uninvolving

Rating: 4/10 (11 March 2014)

The movie never quite pulled me in. Each scene was presented and then another one was presented. In spite of the events, Solomon doesn't really seem to have a fire in his belly to escape. There's no real depiction of an escalation of frustration or passion in Solomon.
There was also no real indication of time passage either. Twelve years go by, he gets released, his kids are grown. It's almost like for 11 years he looks the same and then when he arrives home, he's got gray hair.
Brad Pitt's role was kind of a Deux Ex Machina. Solomon asks for help and it arrives. There was danger for white people helping slaves but here everything goes fine. Solomon tolerates his situation for years and then he asks someone else for help. He never makes a break for it as you would expect.
The soundtrack was kind of horrible. Kind of like watching TV while someone is running the vacuum cleaner. You needed to focus more when the soundtrack kicked in.
The direction was competent, nothing great. It wasn't like "Hey Mom, look! I'm a director" where the director tries too hard. The acting wasn't bad. Lupita Nyong'o did a good job. I kind of thought Michael Fassbender was a psychopath, how he could ever have owned a plantation escaped me. Chiwetel Ejiofor was okay, nothing great, something was missing.