No justice for Africans in 1839 or today

Rating: 6/10 (22 May 2005)

This movie is based upon a fundamentally false premise - that even African tribesmen, unable to speak a word of English, could obtain justice in the American court system. A far more accurate representation of the pre-Civil War "rights" of Africans in the American legal system can be found in the 1853 Dred Scott decision, which held that a lawsuit by a kidnapped African challenging his enslavement couldn't be heard because slaves weren't people. Although Spielberg should be congratulated for his stark portrayal of at least some of the ghastly conditions on slave ships with the unblinking realism he brought to Saving Private Ryan, the film ends on an entirely false note, with a sickening "God Bless America" speech by John Quincy Adams before the Supreme Court, which had absolutely nothing to do with the legal issues there, and certainly would not have been tolerated even of a former President in real legal proceedings. Ultimately, one cannot help but ask why the most important (or at least most expensive) film about slavery in America was about a handful of Africans who were freed by American justice, when millions were kept enslaved by that very same legal system. Imagine a feel good, big budget German film about the release of 50 Jews from Auschwitz by a Nazi court! Nevertheless, the slave ship scenes, as well as the portrayal of the African tribesmen, make the film worth watching - particularly for the bravura performance of Djimon Hounson, who in any just world would have been an shoo-in for a Best Actor award for his amazingly powerful and yet starkly controlled portrayal of Cinque, the leader of the kidnapped Africans. But this is not a just world for Africans, neither today, nor in 1839, and to the extent one leaves Amistad with a different impression, one has been profoundly misled.