Web posted on: Friday, November 26, 1999 10:54:28 AM EST

By Reviewer Paul Clinton

(CNN) -- "Ride With the Devil" is an ambitious film by Taiwan-born director Ang Lee. He took us to 19th-century England with his sharp, witty 1995 adaptation of Jane Austin's "Sense and Sensibility." And he gave us a bleak look at the United States during the so-called sexual revolution of the 1970s in his depressing 1997 film "The Ice Storm."

Lee has collaborated again with one of that film's stars, Tobey Maguire, in "Ride With the Devil," a sweeping epic set in a little-known chapter of the American Civil War.

Based on Daniel Woodrell's 1987 novel, "Woe To Live On" (thankfully, they changed the title), "Ride With the Devil" does take place during the Civil War, but the action isn't set on the traditional battlefields of that conflict. Instead, it's based amid raids and ambushes that took place on the border between Kansas and Missouri .

Lee has gone to great lengths to give this film a look of historical authenticity. The dialogue, costumes and locales ring true. But that painstaking detail in this adaptation of the Woodrell novel by James Schamus is combined with a lack of emotional involvement among the characters. "Ride With the Devil" is more a history lesson than the rousing adventure film it should be.

Maguire plays Jake Roedel, son of a German immigrant, and Skeet Ulrich plays Jack Bull Chiles, son of a Missouri plantation owner. The two are best friends.

When war breaks out, they find themselves fighting on the side of the South, although they don't necessarily share the values of the Confederacy regarding slavery. Early in the film, a Southerner says he's fighting to gain his freedom from the North. Maguire's character responds by asking, "What kind of liberty is it that takes away the liberty of others?" This noble inquiry is forgotten until the final reel.

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The two men join a motley group of Southern sympathizers called "bushwhackers," a term for guerrilla fighters. All the characters here are drawn in broad, one-dimensional strokes. George Clyde, played by Australian actor Simon Baker, represents the Southern gentleman at the end of an era. Pitt Mackeson (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a regulation psychotic.

Also in this group is former slave Daniel Holt, played by Jeffrey Wright, who played Jean Michel Basquiat in the 1996 film "Basquiat" and won a 1994 Tony Award for his work on Broadway in Tony Kushner's "Angels In America: Perestroika." The story element of some emancipated slaves fighting the North beside their former owners is grounded in fact, but Holt is never given the emotional shading to explain his actions.

During a break in the fighting, Holt, Roedel and Chiles meet a young widow. Sue Lee Shelley is played by singer-songwriter Jewel (Kilcher) in her film debut. She's quite good in this pivotal role that provides a love interest for Roedel and Chiles. Maguire and Ulrich are completely believable, and there are some moments of good humor between their characters. But the acting isn't the problem with this film.

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Overall, "Ride With the Devil" is an intensely violent, beautifully crafted film that's never satisfying because there's no emotional core to the story.

None of the characters displays any introspection about the cause he's fighting for. There's little growth here. Everyone alive at the end of the film is, more or less, the same person he or she was at the beginning.

Lee has a keen visual sense and brings home the points that war is hell and that the Civil War pitted brother against brother. These are not new concepts.

This rambling film never really ends, but the score by Mychael Danna swells loudly at the conclusion and serves the dual purpose of signaling the movie's finale and waking you up in case you've fallen asleep.

"Ride With the Devil" opened in limited release (New York, Los Angeles, Kansas City) on Wednesday and is expected to go into wide release December 17. The film is rated R with a running time of 134 minutes.