# Amistad (1997)

### reviewed by
Chris Loar

    Amistad

Directed by Steven Spielberg Starring Morgan Freeman (Theodore Joadson), Anthony Hopkins (John Quincy Adams), Matthew McConaughey (Baldwin), Djimon Hounsou (Cinque), Nigel Hawthorne (Martin Van Buren), David Paymer (Secretary Forsyth), Pete Postlethwaite (Holabird), and Stellan Skarsgard (Tappan)

    A film review by Chris Loar
    Copyright 1998 Chris Loar

I went to see _Amistad_ expecting, from the reviews I'd read, to find a film that was morally uncomplex, self-satisfied and self-congratulatory, but nonetheless a well-told tale in the Spieldbergian tradition -- polished, well-acted, shining like a new penny. What I found surprised me on all counts. For while the film certainly has a self-satisfied tone, all aglitter with pride in the traditions of the American legal system, there is more at work -- a happy depiction of cross-cultural respect and understanding, certainly idealized and unrealistic but optimistic in a way a really self-satisfied tale can never be. At the same time, the storytelling here is often severely disappointing; just enough of really fine filmmaking comes through to make us wish for more. The film is, ironically, neither ill-intentioned nor especially well-crafted.

The film, as most everyone probably knows by now, deals with an unjustly obscure event in our nation's history -- a slave revolt aboard a ship (the _Amistad_) carrying recently-captured African slaves to the new world. The film opens just as the revolt is about to begin; we watch as the leader of the revolt, Cinque (portrayed with astonishing charisma by West African actor Djimon Hounsou) pries free from his chains and frees his fellow captives. The prisoners take control of the ship, slaying most of their captors in the process, and attempt to take the ship back to Africa. But their captors succeed in tricking them, and the ship winds up off the coast of New England, where the Africans are captured and put on trial for the murder of their captors -- and, more importantly, for their status. For it's not clear whether the Africans are legally property or free citizens, a legal question first seized on by their lawyer, Baldwin (Matthew McConaughey). Working with a free black abolitionist (Morgan Freeman), Baldwin works to establish a rapport with Cinque, while trying to secure the expert legal support of the once-brilliant attorney and former President John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins).

What follows is several hours of, essentially, a courtroom drama, which culminates when John Quincy Adams argues the African's case before the Supreme Court. The courtroom sequences are, for the most part, overlong and a little tedious, in my opinion. Much better are what breaks those sequences up -- the flashbacks which show us Cinque's capture and some of the horrors of the Middle Passage, as well as some fine scenes demonstrating Cinque's growing understanding of the American legal system, and his defenders' growing ability to see him as a real human being, rather than a mere cause.

It's really not terribly hard to nitpick about the film's failings, which are numerous. Neither Hopkins nor McConaughey is especially convincing as a quirky attorney; both actors' excessive reliance on gimmicky tics and obvious eccentricities looks flaccid when placed side by side with Freeman's easy solemnity and Hounsou's volatile intensity. And the story doesn't really give any single character his or her due; instead, it lights on its characters like butterflies, departing after an instant, leaving a tickle rather than a real impression. The plot also does at best a poor job of explaining why this case mattered as much as it did to abolitionists or Southerners or anyone else; after all, the final verdict seems to have little enough bearing on the fate of slaves born into slavery. And the John Williams score, while fine in itself, feels intrusive and manipulative, bursting in to cue our emotions in spots where the plot and characters can't quite carry the moment.

These failings, though, don't ruin the movie, they simply turn what could have been a compelling, fascinating film into one that is merely watchable and engaging. For _Amistad_ is clearly worth seeing for its many virtues: Djimon Hounsou's powerful performance, its moving images of racial injustice and revolt, and its well- intentioned (if flawed) depiction of cross-cultural communication and understanding.

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