A finely crafted war film

Rating: 8/10 (17 May 2008)

This film is based (loosely) on the history of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment. They were a trailblazing group, one of the first all-black regiments in the U.S. Army.
The film sports some tremendous African-American actors, particularly Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington, who won his first Oscar for his supporting role here. I'm not entirely convinced by Matthew Broderick's performance, though. Perhaps my doubts are based on the fact that Shaw is portrayed as a human being rather than the a one-dimensional 'hero' like those which Hollywood usually spoon-feeds the public. I'm not certain that Broderick has the chops to pull it off.
The script is well written and mostly avoids the likely pitfalls for a story of this sort. Those pitfalls include a self-congratulatory tone, an inflated sense of accomplishment and a surplus of sentimentality. Thankfully, this is a war film that lives up to its name and does so with a minimum of self-important flag-waving.
The direction (by Edward Zwick) is ably handled but not especially noteworthy. James Horner's score, on the other hand, is not exactly to my liking. I find it too self-consciously 'inspiring' when understatement would have better suited the picture. That being said, it isn't too distracting and the story is legitimately inspiring anyways.
Taken together, this makes for a solid war film. Even though it falls short of perfection in a few key areas it's still much better than run-of-the-mill fare. Definitely a picture worthy of your attention, regardless of whether or not you're a fan of war films.