Ride with the Devil

Plot synopsis:
Jake Roedel and Jack Bull Chiles are friends in Missouri when the American Civil War breaks out. During the mayhem, Chiles's father is murdered by Kansas pro-Union Jayhawkers. The two men join the First Missouri Irregulars, also known as the Bushwhackers; informal units loyal to Missouri in 1861. They later meet George Clyde and former slave Daniel Holt, whose freedom Clyde has previously granted.
The Bushwhackers battle Jayhawkers using guerrilla warfare tactics while trying to evade capture. The men manage to hide out in a coarsely-built shelter on the property of a pro-Confederacy family, the Evanses. A young widow in the household, Sue Lee Shelley, becomes romantically involved with Chiles. When Chiles dies of gangrenous wounds received during a skirmish, Roedel escorts Shelley to a refuge dwelling where another pro-Confederate kindred, the Brown family, reside.
Following the collapse and destruction of a makeshift prison holding the female relatives of guerrillas, a complementary clan of Bushwhackers led by William Quantrill plot a revenge attack against the Union and raid Lawrence, Kansas.
In the midst of the offense, a quarrel arises between Roedel and fellow Bushwhacker Pitt Mackeson. Roedel, a German American, was born in Germany but raised by his immigrant father in Missouri. He suffers from sporadic anti-German suspicion from other Southerners, because the German population in the state is largely sympathetic to the Union. In an episode of hostility, Mackeson purposely shoots Roedel in the leg shortly after the raid on Lawrence, while retreating from a counterattack by Union forces. The perceived prejudice contributes to Roedel's sympathy to the plight faced by Holt, a former slave coping with racism.
Meanwhile, Shelley gives birth to Chiles's daughter. Holt and Roedel, both wounded, recover at the same residence that took in Shelley occupied by the Brown folk. The Browns, who mistakenly suppose Roedel is the child's father, pressure Roedel to marry her, which he is reluctant to do. However, after spending time with Shelley and the child, Roedel begins to have feelings for both of them.
Meanwhile, Anderson and many other Bushwhackers have been killed, taken prisoner or otherwise rendered inactive. Pitt Mackeson has gathered some survivors into a gang which no longer fights the Yankees, but instead robs, murders and plunders Unionists and Southerners alike. Word comes from one of Roedel's compatriots that Mackeson and his gang are headed South and plan on visiting Roedel soon.
One day Mr. Brown takes Holt to town and returns with a reverend and Roedel, after realizing he does love Shelley and she him, marries her in an abrupt wedding. Roedel's feelings toward Shelley are further deepened by a tender wedding night together.
Proclaiming himself finished with war, Roedel gives up being a Bushwhacker and takes his new family to California.
On the way, they meet Mackeson and the last of his men, Turner, ragged, injured and on the run. They report Black John and Quantrill are both dead and agree with Roedel the war is lost. Mackeson tells them of his plan to ride into Newport despite the fact the town is full of Federal soldiers, and his strange manner causes Roedel and Holt to hold guns on Pitt and Turner, but the two ride off without violence.
Holt rides with Roedel and his family toward California, until their roads part, and then Daniel tells Jake farewell, while Shelley and the baby sleep. Holt leaves for Texas, a free man, to find his long lost mother.

Tags: violence, murder

Review:
But don't watch this movie expecting to be "entertained." Ang Lee takes an objective look at a relatively unexplored aspect of the Civil War. What is beautiful about the movie, like all of Lee's films, is that he doesn't "side" with his characters.
As you watch the characters, you will ask yourself "how can they be fighting to preserve slavery?" The fact is, I don't think they really are, and in that the film shows the problem of why so many were caught up in the maelstrom of the Civil War.The fact seems clear that many of the characters we learn about are fighting out of senses of loyalty to "home" though they may never have examined what home represents or whether they truly espouse its values.
Lee has a style which is his, somehow European in its "art" (a slow camera, unrushed), Asian in its epic-ness and development of story, and yet somehow familiar and easily accessible to so many in North Americans.Relax, let go of your preconceptions about what the Civil War is, what the "western" as a genre is, what a war movie should be ...
His direction is amplified by what he brings out of Jewel (yes, the singer), a hitherto unproven actress who puts in an amazing performance.A movie for those who love film and are not lovers of the standard Hollywood epic..
Taiwanese director Ang Lee, whose previous films include 'Sense and Sensibility' and 'The Ice Storm', turned to the American Civil War for his latest feature.
Based on a novel by Daniel Woodrell, it follows the exploits of a group of Southern guerrillas, known as bushwhackers, as they fight their Northern equivalents, the jayhawkers in the backwater of Missouri.As one might expect, there is plenty of visceral action, but the focus is on the tension that the war put on the young men who fought it - many of whom were fighting against their former neighbours and even family.
So does his friend Daniel Holt (Jeffrey Wright), a black slave freed by another bushwhacker and so fighting for the South.Lee handles the subject with aplomb, never rushing the deep introspection that the plot demands in favour of action and this lends the film a sense of the reality of war - long periods of boredom and waiting interposed with occasional flashes of intensely terrifying fighting.
Mr. Lee used hundreds of Civil War re-enactors and took great care in making sure that his principle actors, sets, and scenery looked the part.
The movie was filmed in Missouri and Kansas and captures the scenic beauty of this area.The actors are of a fine calibre and should be recognized for their outstanding performances.
I have copies of Union orders for Captain James Quinn, having to do with the bandits operating in southern Missouri.This film, RIDE WITH THE DEVIL, is one of the truly great American films, and the only one that even begins to get close to the feeling of the border wars, the bushwacking, the betrayals, and the split families.
They left many stories and written records behind, but such autobiographies conceal as much as they reveal, especially about the violence and its traumatizing effects of the young males who experienced it.I am grateful to the makers of this film, the script-writer, the author of the original book WOE TO LIVE ON, the actors and others who created RIDE WITH THE DEVIL and somehow managed to make it such a stunning work of art.
This movie is cool, observant, and generally light-handed in its judgement, which is GOOD.The story has its flaws, especially Jewel's Character comes off doubtfully, but then again the situation at the time was so chaotic, that for a young widow it might have been only logical to somehow get back into a normal life, even by liberally taking each next guy.
No great director of action, as evidenced by the previously mentioned Lawrence Massacre; which lacks the cutting edge to really grab us by the throat and never let go, but for human interest aspects and bucolic scenes with characters framed within, Lee owes film fans absolutely nothing.
Ride with the Devil, like Ang Lee's later Brokeback Mountain, is a film of aesthetic and historical importance.
Little touches like that really enhance the movie's quality.There are no major glaring areas in the history, something that can not be said of the masterpiece of film Glory, which was basically fiction within the context of the major events it follows.
If you want to see a film about the Civil War and feel like you've had a glimpse into history, watch Ride With The Devil.
It is the human element that renders the context necessary to give it perspective, which is what director Ang Lee provides in `Ride With the Devil,' a Civil War drama in which he focuses on the personal travails within the broader depiction of the War itself, and along the way manages to include an examination of one of the bloodiest chapters of the War, the infamous raid on Lawrence, Kansas, by Quantrill and his raiders, which he succeeds in presenting quite objectively from the Confederate point-of-view.In 1863, the Union influence predominates in the State of Kansas, and even across the border in neighboring Missouri, those with Confederate loyalties are finding it increasingly difficult to hold out against the encroaching Northerners, especially without the aid of what could be considered any `regular' Confederate troops.
And they will have to ride with the very Devil himself, against seemingly insurmountable odds.As with all of his films, director Ang Lee approaches his story through an incisive, yet subtle examination of the traditions, cultural aspects and moral attitudes of the people and times he is depicting.
The Civil War will forever be an open wound upon the nation; but hopefully, as time goes on, it will be through the objective contemplations of filmmakers like Ang Lee and films like `Ride With the Devil' that will ultimately help to close the schism and promote healing.
It deals with Jake Roedel (Tobey Maguire) and Jack Bull (Skeet Ulrich) , two friends living in Missouri when the Civil War bursts out .
As his friends die one after another, Jake must decide where honor lies .Exciting film based on historical events set during American Civil War (1861-1865) in which the Bushwhackers use guerrilla warfare to destroy Yankee targets and led by men set on revenge, make a raid into Kansas.
Very good production design , including breathtaking attacks and battles ; the scenes of the Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence, Kansas were filmed in Pattonsburg, Missouri , Pattonsburg was flooded out during the great flood of 1993 and the town was relocated leaving many empty buildings and homes available .
John Brown might be the best known participant, but numerous groups fought for each side in Bleeding Kansas.By the beginning of the American Civil War, Lawrence, Kansas, was already a target for pro-slavery ire, having been seen as the anti-slavery stronghold in the state and more importantly, a staging area for Union and Jayhawker incursions into Missouri.
All told, if you are a Civil War buff and a film lover, see this movie...see it on DVD if possible as the surround sound is awesome for the action scenes..
All the time this film makes you feel the horror of war, and the desperate situation of the main characters who do not know if they are going to survive the next hours.
It stars  Toby Maguire,   Skeet Ulrich  Jeffrey Wright  & as the  young lady  Jewel, I never heard or seen her before, I want to see more of her).The acting is  top notch, superb production values, very well written (adapted from a novel) This is a long film   128 minutes, but well worth seeing.
Ride With The Devil is a dead serious film, its mission an unsparing, unsentimental portrait of the horrors of the Missouri-Kansas guerrilla conflict during the U.S. Civil War.
The movie tells the story of the guerrilla warfare that took place between "Border Ruffians" in the frontier between Missouri and Kansas during the Civil War. Missouri was a border state that did not secede, but was politically dominated by pro-slavery forces.
And I am not being politically correct when I am forced to point out that Jeffrey Wright's spot-on performance as Daniel Holt, a slave caught somewhere between freedom, slavery and war was the best in the film.
The story of Ang Lee's American Civil War drama Ride With The Devil is a straightforward enough piece about a young man getting caught up in the violence of the time.
That means total attention to detail, realistic dialogue and characterisation that makes one understand these people who are on the run for their lives.We've all known that Ang Lee could direct, for most that would start with his 'Sense & Sensibility', which shocked an awful lot of people, for a Taiwanese to turn in such a great film, his first film In English and about that elitist of film genres - the English period drama.
(The call of these ancient grievances was such that even a family's black slave could feel their pull and identify with them more than with a pro-Unionist outloook which was ostensibly more to his personal advantage, a point which Ang Lee ably illustrates here.)Most of the film's characters -- save, primarily, for the failed schoolteacher-turned guerilla leader William Quantrill (here portrayed hypnotically, chillingly by John Ales) -- are apocryphal.
the characters are a bit goody goody but the use of the black character 'hope' is loosely based on an actual black tracker that rode with quantrell's raiders.i think this movie ranks alongside films such as 'gods and generals' and the fantastic 'gettysburg' as a great civil war film.Toby Maguire might seem an unlikely choice as 'jake'the main character but he seems to pull it off but as an Englishman i cant comment on the accuracy of the accents..
This film, RIDE WITH THE DEVIL (1999), is a solid film that stays true to a single visionary idea: "the American Civil War was fought by soldiers and armed personnel firing one gun at a time, in all the most despicable of ways and only infrequently with noble ends in mind."  The screenplay is a bit mystifying and reading the original novel helps only somewhat.
I had heard "Ride With the Devil" was a really good movie, and my main motivation to see it was because of the singer, Jewel, who plays the lead female role here.
I also liked Tobey Mcguire for his roles in such movies as "Pleasantville."The film starts with a wedding, and Mcguire's character commenting that marriage is just another form of prison.
My girlfriend does not like war movies, but she did think that this was a very good film..
One of the best things about the film is the way that it portrays the two sides, glorifying neither while allowing the audience to see the forces that drove so many men to kill one another - loyalty, friendship, vengeance, fear.As an American, a movie like this will really make you think about your country and its sometimes inglorious past.
Everyone seems to be in character and this is accredited to the actors as well as the director, Ang Lee. Jewel did a really good job for her first movie, too!
"Ride" is a movie which combines the classic elements of a war film (fraternity, courage, self-knowledge) with those of a slice-of-life (love, tenderness, honesty) in a stock of beautiful shots and good writing.
History Over Drama Any Day. OK, so it may be true that "Ride With the Devil" is not the most generically entertaining movie on the market when it comes to Civil War films.
But, as any history major or Civil War buff can tell you, director Ang Lee did his homework when he made "Ride With the Devil."If you're looking for a pseudo-historical drama full of modern verbal anachronisms, impossible non-stop action sequences, and numerous clearly unresearched historical contexts, rent "Shanghai Knights."  The language in "Ride With the Devil" reflects most accurately how the people of the time spoke, according to the letters and written narratives we have from that period.
One last thing about this film: if you want to have a good look at how outlaws and known men like Frank and Jesse James got their start, (the similarities are numerous throughout the movie) and would like to better understand why men like the James brothers never stopped fighting the war, watch "Ride With the Devil."  It is a well-researched historical production that shows things from a mostly non-biased (or at least not the typical Yankee textbook way...which, by the way, we get sick of seeing here in the South) viewpoint..
"Ride..." focuses on one of scores of interesting conflicts of the American civil war period: The messy guerrilla warfare along the free-Kansas (Jayhawker) and pro-slavery Missouri (Bushwhacker) border.
Although a good movie for all to see, "Ride With the Devil" will play best with those most interested in America's most defining time..
It's worth noting that the film improves as it goes along, ending on a number of satisfying notes.It's of course a little tempting to wonder why Ang Lee, a Taiwanese director best known for intimate family dramas, would want to make a movie about the US Civil War and if it was a good decision on his part.
The friendship between Maguire and the black slave humanizes the Civil War. It also shows why it's far more interesting to make the heroes southerners fighting AGAINST emancipation (who then have more to learn), as opposed to conventional good-guys with their moral compasses neatly pointing in the politically correct direction.Jewel has such a well-written and lively role that it would be almost impossible for her to screw it up.
Directed by Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Ice Storm, etc.), edited by Tim Squyres (Gosford Park, Rachel Getting Married, Crouching Tiger, etc.), shot by Frederick Elmes (Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Night On Earth, Broken Flowers, etc.), produced by Ted Hope (too many cool movies to name), starring loads of great people and based on Daniel Woodrell's novel, 1999's Civil War epic Ride With the Devil is one of the more interesting films of the last 20 years.
There are six theories often discussed when talking about why, after completion, Devil saw the studio treatment it did: 1) Matt Damon was originally signed on to star, but dropped out after the film had already gone into pre-production; 2) director Ang Lee was not given final cut of the film; 3) the studio heads simply thought the movie was awful; 4) the film tested poorly in the UK (only partially true); 5) a whole lot of loudmouth history buffs made public issue of a few inaccurate details; and 6) people hated the idea of a true-to-life sub-plot featuring a black man, John Noland, who joins the Confederate Army.So no, people did not seen this movie, but they might now.
So now, after 10 years, it's here, the much discussed yet little-seen Civil War epic from Ang Lee, out on shelves just waiting for your cinephile hearts.What do we at the Screen time offices think of the movie?
So yes, Ride With the Devil is a beautiful movie to look at  in fact, as is the case with every Ang Lee film, all of the technical elements are handled incredibly well.The cast?
We were sold at Ruffalo, Wright and Wilkinson, though Urbaniak and Rhys-Meyers are great as well.So is Devil the best Civil War film ever?
"Ride With The Devil", like most Westerns and most war films, is not about its environment.
With this movie he has made a film about the American Civil War, a time period that has been used more often in movies, but because I know that Ang Lee always tries to do something original with his movies, I decided to give it a try."Ride with the Devil" is situated in Missouri at the beginning of the Civil War. Jake Roedel and Jack Bull Chiles are friends and they decide to join a militia called the Bushwhackers, after Jack Bull's dad is killed by Union soldiers.
Ang Lee isn't the least of directors and I'm convinced that the man can spot real talent, even in people who aren't very famous for their acting.All in all this is an enjoyable movie that shows a different aspect from the Civil War. It may sometimes be a bit slow, but overall this is an enjoyable movie that is able to keep you interested for over two hours.
Overshadowed by publicity surrounding the film debut of Jewel, "Ride With The Devil" quickly flopped at the box office last year, leaving Ang Lee's very good Civil War drama unknown to many.
The film is at its best as it focuses on the personal lives of Jake (Tobey Maguire), Jack Bull (Skeet Ulrich), and Holt (Jeffrey Wright), the two whites and a black scout guarding a pro-south family in Missouri.
Perhaps the actors had to find their characters, the cast is quite young.Ang Lee did something incredible: He made an American Civil War kitchen sink drama, with 3 big action sequences that are exceptionally well staged and edited.I didn't have a problem with Jeffrey Wrights character.
Released in 1999 "Ride with the Devil" is a Civil War tale focusing on Southern guerrilla fighters known as Bushwhackers, mostly young men who stage daring raids on Union forces and communities along the Missouri/Kansas border.
Ang Lee's civil war epic, 'Ride with the Devil', is a handsome film, and I don't necessarily mean this in a good way: it's a movie in which good looking young Southerners, prone to making fine southern speeches, move through a world dotted with gorgeous, well-built southern houses - even when the central characters hole up underground their shelter has a surprisingly solid feel.
As for the acting, I think this is Toby McGuire's best role, but it still seems to me like he always plays the same character in every movie he has been in.