The first time I heard about Amistad I heard slave ship drama directed by Steven Spielberg. So I immediately thought, Oscar nominations. Big film. Huge money, very important, very moving film. Well, it didn'

Rating: 8/10 (20 July 2001)

It's didn't make the money I thought it would, and the hype wasn't as big as I expected. More importantly, the movie wasn't as good as I had hoped. The first problem is that it wasn't very moving. This movie is bound to be compared to Schindler's List and that might not be a fair thing to do, but the best thing about Schindler's List was that there was a lot of emotion. You felt for each and every person in that film. Here, I felt for some of the people, some of the time. The main character, a slave named Cinque (played remarkably by Djimon Hounsou) was very powerful. He only spoke about 6 words of English, but the mark of a good actor is the ability to convey your feelings without having to use words, and although you can't understand what he's saying, you know what he's feeling. In my opinion, Hounsou gave one of the best acting performance of the year.
The rest of the cast, Anthony Hopkins as John Quincy Adams and Matthew McConaughey as attorney Roger Baldwin, was strong, as expected from a Spielberg helmed film. The scenes on the slave ship were amazing, and horrifying. Those scenes alone make the movie a must see. It's sad to realize that this really happened. It's not just Hollywood making a movie, it's Hollywood making a movie based on a true story, and what happened to these people is tragic. But don't go into the film thinking it's about the trial of slaves accused of killing the ship owners. The trial is really about whether or not they can be considered slaves. And don't think the ultimate Supreme Court decision actually carries a lot of weight. I know a lot of people seeing the movie think that this one case changed the way people thought of slaves, and this one case was a major factor in the Civil War. But if you listen closely to the decision, the case only affects the people on board the Amistad. They didn't make any new law in the case, just used old law to help the slaves.
Overall it was a good movie, and something that needed to be made. I've gone through elementary school, 2 years of junior high school, 4 years of high school, 2 years of college, and until this movie came out, I never heard this story. If we can't learn about important subjects like this in school, then we have to learn about it somewhere else, and I for one am proud that Spielberg decided to make this movie. While it may not live up to the standards set by Spielberg and the viewing public, it is still definitely one t