Good acting, story so-so

Rating: 4/10 (26 December 2003)

Civil War movies are not my forte but I saw this because of the sheer force of the talent in it. Well, the talented actors lived up to the hype but the film's story just never interested me deeply. Law and Kidman are the real deal in the acting world but I was truly impressed with Zellwegger, who carried it to the end for me. There were a boatload of great actors in smaller roles in this film, which helped it along but I always seemed to feel that it was trying too hard to be "arty" and haunting. The battle scenes were typical of any Civil War movie (God knows there are too many of them out there already) so I just don't understand the hype surrounding this one. It's not a bad film at all, just not one that I would recommend to people who ask about it.