I don't like Spielberg, but this was decent

Rating: 6/10 (6 July 2002)

It's also somewhat historically inaccurate (what Spielberg based on a true story isn't?) but the story of the Amistad rebellion is so powerful that it survives the usual Spielbergisms. As usual, there's a scene with a bunch of white guys in court, and they actually concatenated a long series of legal maneuvers in real life into the single dramatic courtroom sequence, a truly trod to death device. I also thought the story on film missed one of the major points one might take from the historical incident -- that while the US system in the 19th century held the seeds of the civil war within, it also simultaneously held a concept of justice that transcended the primitive concepts of race and human equality of the time.
The bottom line is that in real life the captives of the Amistad took their own destiny into their own hands, and that shines through in the flick, so well worth watching both as entertainment and edification on a sorely-neglected incident in US history.