Amistad preview

Rating: 10/10 (23 October 2006)

I almost changed channels in the beginning 15 minutes or so of this movie, because it wasn't in English, and very few captions telling me what the actors were saying, but I hung in there, and the wait was worth it! This was the most gripping movie I've seen in years, and left me with the prayer "Oh God, help us all!" I was particularly shocked to find out that slavery was justified in the 1800's by someone's interpretation of bible sentences, namely that Eve was created from Adam's rib, therefore, Eve is slave to Adam. From that began the concept of slavery, but how it jumped from Eve to African Americans I don't understand! We all know that women are still held to a slavery mind-set, even over 100 years after the Civil War! What did the Civil War have to do with this thought? The winning of the trial in this movie sparked the Civil War.
Anthony Hopkins was perfect for the part of President John Quincy Adams, and even though Morgan Freeman's role was less stellar, his mere presence on the set was absolutely binding for all the other actors. People captured as slaves back then were deemed less than equal, which this movie explicitly showed, especially when the ship tossed 50 people overboard, tied with a chain, because they didn't have enough food on board to feed them all during their passage to the United States.
I particularly liked Anthony Hopkins statement "We are who we are only because of who we've been".