"We ran away slaves, but we come back fightin' men".

Rating: 8/10 (16 October 2011)

Civil War re-enactments are some of the most insane things I've ever seen. Men line up in formation on opposing sides, and shoot at each other in wide open fields with no cover or protection. I have no idea why battles like this were ever deemed to be practical in the first place. I would think fighting guerrilla style would have a lot more merit if your objective is to actually kill the enemy and win without getting killed yourself.
Aside from whatever historical inaccuracies might be present, I thought this was an effective story. Criticisms of Matthew Broderick in the lead role are somewhat misplaced in my view, once one gets past the fact that he's Matthew Broderick. About the same age as the character he portrays, I think he grows into the role of a Union Colonel over the course of the story, with each humanistic stand he takes for his troops showing the growth of his stature. The confrontation with the quartermaster was particularly impressive, while his bribery of General Harker (Bob Gunton) was instructive in the way leaders get their way when all reasonable attempts fail.
Denzel Washington won his first Oscar in a break-out role here, but to my mind, any of his fellow actors could have been honored just as well. Morgan Freeman (Rawlins) and Andre Braugher (Thomas Searles) were equally impressive, and except for somewhat less screen time, Jihmi Kennedy (Sharts) was also quite effective. Colonel Shaw's mission was to turn this rag-tag band into an effective fighting regiment, and when he won them over by tearing up his own pay voucher, you knew that he had finally won their trust.
What I admire about the film is the way it places in context the black man's struggle for freedom and identity, while showing how white men of courage and conviction helped achieve that goal. It's easy to decry a film as racist when it's telling a story about racism, and that's a beef I have with critics who are fixated on only one side of the story. Together, white and black men have been able to stand side by side over the course of history to right the wrongs of the past, and failure to recognize this is what stands in the way of a truly color blind society.