Commercial, slow, professional.

Rating: 6/10 (4 January 2006)

The first third of the movie is pretty exciting, loaded with dramatic special effects -- a storm at sea, stroboscopic lightning, butcher with a cutlass. The second act is interesting too and competently done. The 40-some captured Mende are introduced to New England culture, such as it was in 1839, and Spielberg does a nice job with language problems, misunderstandings, and the clash between the outraged and murderous big black guys on the one hand, and the psalm-singing shrunken white moralists on the other. The third act kind of loses steam and ultimately peters out in a series of trials -- three actually -- in which the blacks ultimately gain the freedom they'd lost in Sierra Leone.
I'll give one example each of the movie's strong points and weaknesses.
Djimon Hounsou is terrific as the lead would-be slave. He's an impressive physical presence, tall, muscular, brooding. When he's angry he booms and shouts and his eyes bulge slightly. He is every intimidated white person's nightmare come true. But that's his character. As an actor he's far more sly, and this is no one-note performance. He rarely smiles but when he is obviously pleased he looks out of the corners of his eyes, shyly, almost furtively, and it's touching. His Mende-ness, his "other"-ness, is suggested just enough. He stands a little too close to the people he's dealing with, the way Mediterranean people do. And if it makes US a little uncomfortable just watching it, we can only imagine how the descendants of the Mayflower felt about this whole business. Close enough to smell each other! The Africans are treated as ordinary folks, which is pretty much what they are, allowing for cultural differences, and we get to see enough of the inhuman way they were treated by slavers to know the suffering they've been through. And that's about where the movie drops the ball. Spielberg and his writers don't really trust the audience enough to allow them understanding to this extent. The Africans, if not exactly ennobled by their horrors, are given dramatic scenes which are too many in quantity and too bald in their intent.
Hounsou -- in the middle of a trial in which his fate is being decided, carried on in a language he does not understand -- has to stand up in the docks raise his manacled fists and repeatedly shout, "Give us FREE. Give us FREE!" And in the denouement, when they are freed for the last time to return to Africa, Hounsou goes from white savior to white savior, eyes brimming with tears, while soupy music swells in the background, and clasps hands with each of them -- at length. (That last handclasp almost turns shockingly into a high-five.) It's not only unnecessary, it goes on way too long.
Well, I'll throw in another observation. Anthony Hopkins is John Quincy Adama, former President, by this time in his life course a curmudgeonly old geezer with a lot still on the ball. He only has two scenes -- an early introduction in which we see him perfunctorily giving orders to people trying to help him walk. ("Gimme a hand." "Leggo my arm.") And a later summary given to the court that once and for all ends the legal baloney. The speech isn't really well written. It doesn't say much, and what it says is not particularly gripping. But Hopkins' performance could not be improved upon. He's got the role down pat, even to the suggestion of a Boston accent. Not MUCH of a Boston accent, but no more than is necessary because, after all, in 1839 Bostonians may have sounded as much like their Brit ancestors as like Barney Frank.
The photography is great. The location shooting is good -- those dreary New England winters. Well worth seeing, despite the overdone moralizing.