good, but not great

Rating: 6/10 (22 November 2005)

over all the film amistad is well acted, directed, et cetera. it's a good movie on the whole, with no loss of technical mastery of the medium of film. it has anthony hopkins and morgan freeman, two actors who lend considerable weight to any movie (albeit here they are relegated to supporting rolls) and there are a number of other small but fine performances. nothing about the movie really stands out, much like numerous other historical pieces, it achieve quality but not superiority. One of the things about historical films like this is their tendency to cut and paste modern mentalities upon characters that would have had strikingly different world views. While the movie holds true about the moral crusade of the early abolitionists, it tends to gloss over the fact that few abolitionists would have considered africans as equal members of society to themselves. It also underplays the fact that some of the early motivation for the end of slavery was purely economic. These starkly contrast the usual narrative that pits everything into easily understood categories of good and evil. In history as in the world there are numerous shades of grey. A wonderful historical piece would be one that would present us with the questions involved in such complex issues in ways that would not be dumbed down, but instead unmitigated exploration of the conflicting values of an ever changing world. Plus it would feature some gratuitous nudity for the sake of entertainment.
6 out of 10