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Review: 'Amistad' a powerful but sinking ship
December 12, 1997
Web posted at: 9:17 p.m. EST (0217 GMT)From Reviewer Paul Tatara
(CNN) -- Steven Spielberg is arguably (maybe even inarguably) the single greatest visual storyteller that the movies have seen since the fall of the studio system back in the mid-1950s. I don't agree with the theory, but there are people out there who feel that the true test of a director is whether or not you can follow what's going on in his or her films with the sound turned off. Try this some time with "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Aside from the Bible-related hocus-pocus, you've got yourself a movie that would be just as compelling if the soundtrack consisted of nothing but a player piano. This would work swimmingly (if you'll pardon the pun) for "Jaws," too.
Watch the movie trailer
Spielberg is a master, no two ways about it, and I was very pleased when he decided to sit at what Woody Allen once referred to as "the grown-ups' table" when he concocted "Schindler's List" a few years back. But that story, and Spielberg's latest, the historical epic "Amistad," are different beasts altogether.
"Amistad" is the true story of an uprising on a slave ship in 1841, a heroic event that needs to be told. The characters aren't prototypical Saturday matinee goofballs. What they're saying and how they say it convey as much as Spielberg's expected visual precision. Unfortunately, the story Spielberg tells could have been more powerfully presented with a brilliant one-hour film and a civics class slide show presented in the lobby to explain the rest.
The movie is an uneasy coupling of our two Stevens, and, even though I'm generally a bigger fan of dialogue-oriented stories, it's the highly visual opening sequences and one brutal passage in the middle of the film that stick with me. Luckily for Spielberg, they'll most likely be remembered by audiences as the defining moments, and everyone will conveniently forget the talky, monotonous parts. Nearly all of the first 10 or so minutes is presented either silently or in an African tongue that most filmgoers will have never heard before.
Watch a portion of the trailer 1.6M/45 sec./160x120
QuickTime movieIn the first shot, Cinque, a powerfully built black man (played just as powerfully by first-time film performer Djimon Hounsou), is seen agonizingly pulling a nail out of his chains with bloody fingers and picking the locks that are holding him down. After helping his fellow slave ship captives free themselves, these Africans grab machetes and proceed to butcher the crew that has taken them from their homeland.
As brilliantly (and brutally) presented as all of this is, it wasn't exactly filling me with hope for the rest of the film. The sequence is the most Spielberg-like thing in the movie. A potently depicted slave uprising isn't enough for a guy who's capable of permanently dazzling us with the landing of a UFO mother ship. You have to have everything taking place in a rainstorm, with marauding figures appearing and falling from view as Hollywood-style lightning flashes periodically illuminate the action.
Plus, there's the troubling depiction of Hounsou's impressive physique. With rivulets of water cascading down his chest and chiseled thighs, Spielberg comes dangerously close to fetishizing the big black slave, and that's certainly not what the movie calls for. It may work like gang busters in conveying a sense of passionate desperation, but this is way too erotically charged for its own good.
Then everything calms down and Spielberg grows about as meditative as you've ever seen him. He even (quite surprisingly when you consider the rest of his oeuvre) dispenses with music for several minutes. There are some near-surrealistic shots of the quiet Africans scanning the stars as they try to steer their way back home. I also enjoyed a moment (highly reminiscent of "Empire of the Sun") that literally presents two ships passing in the night. On one, we get the awestruck Africans; on the other, a wealthy dinner party featuring a string quartet and crystal goblets. At this moment, volumes of information are conveyed in a scant few seconds; it's Spielberg very much at the top of his game.
However, once the ship is captured and the Africans are locked up in a New England jail, everything runs ashore. Or just gets waterlogged. The poetry of the opening sequences is often replaced with your 11th-grade history teacher reading from a textbook, and this, my friends, is a great deal less interesting than the so-called "magic of movies." Big-time movie stars become the focus, and, after the forceful eloquence of Hounsou's steely gaze, this is a huge letdown. Matthew McConaughey plays a free-spirited lawyer who will argue that the captured Africans belong to no one, that they must immediately be returned to Africa. McConaughey gives it a shot, but, with his curly hair, spectacles, and top hat, he looks like a walking Christmas whiskey decanter. He's badly miscast.
Not as miscast, but just as uninteresting, is Morgan Freeman, as an abolitionist who's trying to enlist political bigwigs to help fight the battle. As I've pointed out in the past, everything that comes out of Freeman's mouth sounds dignified and absolutely true, but this is a pretty thankless role. Just like everyone else, he eventually ends up gazing reverently at the articulate white guys who come riding in to save the day.
The most enjoyable of these white guys is Anthony Hopkins as former President John Quincy Adams. Hopkins is acting up a storm, and he sometimes comes alarmingly close to looking like an escapee from Disney World's Hall of Presidents, but he imbues Adams with a cynical sense of humor that's a welcome respite from the incredibly long dry stretches that appear throughout the film (no need to take Sominex tonight, let me tell you).
There's also the quite unbelievable idiocy of some of the lawyers and various government representatives, who say things to the understandably angry, terrified Africans like "Hello, Cinque, my name is Roger Baldwin. I'll be your attorney." Then they stare in astonishment when the non-English-speaking Africans don't respond. I guess language barriers used to be just as difficult to perceive as less industrially advanced cultures.
The real heart of the movie, though, is Hounsou's Cinque. Hounsou is an astounding, naturalistic performer who can shift gears from gentle wisdom to intense fury at the drop of a hat. He's a spiritual presence in a movie that badly needs one to keep it on course. I believe Hounsou deserves an Oscar nomination, and, if I know the Academy, he may very well win one this year. First time, hard-to-cast actors who manage to pull off interesting performances in big movies (think Marlee Matlin and Anna Paquin) are almost too much to pass up. Everyone will pat themselves on the back for "addressing an issue," then they'll proceed to make a $200 million movie about robots blowing up historical landmarks.
The opening uprising in "Amistad" is a ghastly, bloody thing to watch, but it's nothing compared to the horrors displayed in the galley of the slave ship. It's an honest depiction of that particular hell, and, deserving of our attention or not, it would greatly trouble younger children. Teen-agers should see it, though, if they can manage to stay awake through the speechifying. Rated R. 150 minutes.
Related sites:
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- The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) - A database of more than 120,000 movies
- Amistad - The Film (official)
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