mostly fiction, historically inaccurate

Rating: 2/10 (1 October 2005)

One would think that the setting of this movie was in Kansas with Quantrills Raiders and the Jayhawkers, not North Carolina. This movie is full of brutal atrocities that never happened in North Carolina and to some extent not during the Civil War.
For example is the rogue Southern militia rounding up deserters and punishing all they believed helped them. Deserters were not executed by the militia as depicted in this movie. They were turned over to the nearest Souther Army units and then sent back to their units where they were court martialed and executed as example in their own units.
Another example was the incursion of a Union patrol into the North Carolina mountains in 1864. That did not happen but members of this patrol attempt to rape a widow with a baby. Never happened. One of the atrocities that didn't occur during the Civil War was rape. The entire scene was unreal. A patrol might scavenge for food but the soldiers would have most respectful to the woman, particularly since she had a baby. They would have been solicitous of her welfare.
And then when the widow escapes from the soldiers, she finds a rifle that did not exist in the Civil War and shoots a naked soldier running for his life in the back. Pure nonsense.
Then the Southern deserter has the horses of the Union patrol available to ride to his destination but instead of using the horses he continues walking across the mountains. Could he be that stupid? Nicole Kidman was completely miscast in this movie like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Even her costumes are too well tailored for a mountain girl.And her acting left a lot to be desired. Renee Zelwigger fit her part perfectly which was that of a homely mountain girl.
All in all, this movie didn't bother with the facts. It was much more interested in titillating its viewers with sex and violence and any success it had was in doing that.