Interesting and emotionally impacting  just not at the same time

Rating: Null/10 (18 December 2006)

1839 sees a cargo of slaves rise up and take over the ship Amistad from their masters. They point the ship back in the direction of their homeland but only succeed in ending up in America. There they are taken into custody and charged with the murder of the crew. Those in favour of abolishing slavery pick up their cause but there are several other claims of ownership on this "cargo". As the abolitionists' lawyer Baldwin joins them he tries at first to make it a simple matter of legal possession, highlighting the fact that the slaves came from Africa and were not born into slavery  thus making them illegally acquired. However as the case becomes more complex and political, Baldwin turns to one of the slave, Cinque, to help build his case.
Opening with the well-directed and fragmented overthrow of the Amistad, this film immediately steps back into a slightly more talkative state that continues for the majority of the film. Later in the film we flashback to the slave ships for a vivid and devastating look at the treatment and murder of the slaves during their journey but mostly the film is an interesting courtroom drama with this very intriguing case in history at its heart. As specific parts of the film, this is all well and good because there isn't really a weak part of the film but yet it tends not to hang together as well as it should. The courtroom stuff is interesting but you find yourself drawn into the detail of the case and forget the wider picture of the cruelty and tragedy of slavery. The film occasionally jumps back to that to remind us but it doesn't manage to weave this across the whole story. So I can understand the criticism of the film (or rather subdued praise) because it does at times lose itself into a polished drama rather than an emotional look at a period in history.
Spielberg's direction is best when given moments of style or horror to work with but otherwise he delivers a nice sense of place and period while wrapping the whole lot in a rather sentimental score. It is a rather disappointingly delivery though because it is quite, well, "ordinary" at times. The cast are impressive on paper and mostly good on the screen. Although he is way down the fame ladder at this point, Hounsou is impressive as Cinque. He brings a lot out with his face and body and he creates a character long before he has been given subtitles or a translator to aid him. McConaughey is reasonably good alongside him and supports the factual courtroom side of the film. Hopkins is a little bit hammy and overdoes the doddery nature of his character. Ejiofor is as good as he nearly always is, even with a comparatively small role. Freeman, Hawthorne, Paymer, Postlethwaite, Skarsgård and Paquin all add famous names and solid turns but the material doesn't really need all of them, although I suppose the worthy nature of the story made them easy to get.
At the least though, this is an interesting film that is delivered in a professional and polished way. It has a few moments of searing emotion but mostly it is just interesting and is wrapped in a rather obvious score. Worth seeing for what it does well, but perhaps a little disappointing (considering the calibre of people involved) for what it does not.