Quite a strange mixed-up movie

Rating: 6/10 (21 February 2014)

Reviewing this one is pretty much walking on thin ice. Let's start with pros: excellent cast performances (with outstanding Mr. Eijofor towards the end, Mr. Fassbender all the way, Miss Nyong'o and Mr. Dano, whose destiny is to play psychotic maniacs). Let's continue with the mediocre: direction, cinematography and editing. Now let's finish with bad: writing. The story is simply mixed up: writers could not decide what was important and what wasn't. The movie is simultaneously too long and too short. It has some unnecessarily extended scenes (probably symbolic but with no meaning in context), which should have been cut out, and lacks character developing. The final product a superficial portrait of an American antebellum era, even today looking almost as bad as the Nazism. To think that the capitalist economy has been built on theft, robbery, slavery and hypocrisy (justifying it through the Bible) and almost all the guilty got away with it! I guess that's why today white Americans are so patriotic: they not only took the land from the native inhabitants, but built their welfare on slavery and exploiting anyone who was not white (Chinese building railroads and so on). But, this film barely touches any of those problems as it should. It's just an excerpt from one man's (and his book) life. Nothing too deep or truly emotional, almost cheap like the articles in tabloids. This is not a good movie. It could be far more better but it isn't. It has moments (mainly main characters performances; therefore 6 stars) but as a whole fails to deliver an important message on humanity (as well as some political and moral messages) and be a movie that makes sense. And it seemed that director's intention has been just that. Well, he missed this time.