Well produced movie depicting the horrors of slavery and the slave trading system

Rating: 8/10 (1 January 2016)

Despite historical inaccuracies and some sloppiness in the acting Amistad remains a great film.
The depiction of this group of slaves, dehumanized by the processes involved with slavery, may not be totally historically correct, but it gave a good visualization of the horrors of slavery that most probably hadn't seen. At the time of this uprising, slavery divided our entire country, and was easily the most pressing issue to deal with. During one scene, President Van Buren faces the harsh reality that his re-election could be based on the decision he makes on this case. Incidents like what happened on La Amistad are what lead our country to civil war, because neither side wanted to budge on what they believed was right.
When the film begins, you see a slave struggling, desperate to get a nail out of the floorboard so he can unshackle himself. He breaks free, and releases a group of other men and they take knives and murder several crew members on the boat and take two hostage. The scene cuts after you watch a struggle between a slave and a crew member, and the slave repeatedly plunges his sword into the mans stomach while shouting as loud as he can. At this point you see these slaves as savages and murderers, who can't speak any language but their primitive slave language.
However it isn't until well into the trial when Cinque tells his story that we see what he went through to get to that point. He was captured with a net, beaten with a club, he had to watch public whippings, people being thrown into the sea to drown, he was crowded into a tight room with at least a hundred other slaves, most completely naked, and forced to fight for food, with people defecating everywhere. None of this was uncommon during the days of slavery. Kids had to watch as their parents were beaten, killed, raped, etc. This gives the average Joe Shmoe a visual on how horrible slavery truly was, as apposed to reading it in a textbook. Spielberg depicts this scene at the bottom of the ship, crowded with men, women, and children struggling for dear life, being treated like animals, amazingly. For me that was one of the most moving scenes in the movie, and reminded me what slavery really was.
Another great scene was early in the trial, the prosecuting lawyer stands up before the court, and says how inhumane the slaves were to slaughter the crew. This is completely and totally ironic because of the dehumanization of slaves and the cruel and unusual treatment they have to suffer. This shows the attitude people had towards slavery at the time.
Overall I thought that Spielberg did an amazing job with this story, and it would have been a 9 or 10 out of 10 had it not been for some historical inaccuracies and inconsistencies