Spielberg was on cruise control

Rating: 6/10 (4 May 1999)

Spielberg has been accused of being inconsistent with his movie making; "Amistad" is all the proof I need. The film is disappointing to say the least, and I came out of the theater thinking that Spielberg made it while on cruise control. It lacks the necessary passion and emotion, both in the performances and in direction; it feels like Spielberg decided the story would carry the movie all by itself, and all he needed to do was sit back in his director's chair and say "action" and "cut". When he occassionaly tries to inject some power and feeling into the film, the attempts feel completely contrived and slightly insidious. The best example is the scene midway through the movie depicting the middle passage; this should have been the high (in a matter of speaking) point for the movie, but instead it felt like Spielberg simply went through the motions in depicting the attrocities. Above all, the way the scene is introduced (as a flashback stemming from a court scene) is entirely wrong and feels orchestrated and planned, as if somebody decided that "hey, we need to depict some of the horrors of slavery, so why not do it right here". In other words, the movie doesn't flow properly from scene to scene. Finally, the approach to the story was totally wrong. Most of it is told through the eyes of American lawyers and activists. Instead, the film should have been from the point of view of the Africans. Spielberg missed a golden opportunity with "Amistad"; handled properly, it would not only have been a great movie but a testament and monument to the victims of slavery. Instead, the film simply disappoints.