outstanding

Rating: Null/10 (24 July 2002)

This is one of the best war movies ever made and an important one. The movie had a terrific, authentic look and was helped by the fact that a lot of the extras in the movie were Civil War reenactors who are noted for their dedication to authenticity.
The cast is outstanding. Matthew Broderick was just right as Col. Robert Gould Shaw and he picks up Shaw's rich boy/idealist attitude perfectly. Shaw may have owed his command to his family's connections but he was no poser---he died leading his men from the front. The Confederates thought they were descecrating him by burying him in a mass grave with his black troops---Shaw's parents later said that their son couldn't have had a prouder burial.
Of course the core of the movie are the black soldiers. This was possibly the first big movie about the black soldier in the Civil War and you can tell that these men are putting everything they've got into their parts. Denzel Washington easily deserved his Oscar for this movie and no one can forget the scene where he's flogged and defiantly takes his punishment without crying out---except for a tear rolling down his face.

Andre Braugher I thought had the most interesting part though---the educated freeman who immediately volunteers to fight only to find out that he's the most physically inept man in the company. Braugher's character is caught in a terrific cultural battle---he looks down on the other blacks who are mostly runaway slaves and identifies himself more with the white officers. But as an enlisted he's not allowed to even talk to the officers. Washington torments him unceasingly and mocks him for trying to act like he's white. Braugher's best scene is the prayer/song meeting the night before the battle of Ft. Wagner. The men are singing spirituals and praising God and you can see Braugher's character transform---he finally sees the nobility of these men that he's looked down upon and he realizes that these are truly his people and his brothers, and he becomes a "black" man for the first time in his life and knows that he has dignity because of that.
The most memorable thing about this movie for me is the effect this movie had on my two boys. I let them watch this movie when they were barely kindergarten age and they were fascinated by it. It was the first Civil War movie they'd ever seen and they peppered me with questions during the movie. I had to assure them that white people fought to free the slaves, too, not just black soldiers! But I wanted my boys, who are white, to see that America had and has black heroes as well--when I was their age such a movie was unthinkable. After the movie was over my boys ran to their room to play soldier and re-enact parts of the movie. I could hear them arguing--both of them wanted to be the black soldier (the good guy!). Finally my youngest let his brother be the black soldier and then he said, "I'll pretend I'm white!" I got a little choked up when I heard him say that---that two children might be able to be so colorblind was exactly the type of world that the heroes of the 54th were fighting to create. I think they would've been proud of a 4 yr old boy saying that.