Word: films
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Overall, however, the film lacks a convincing historical grounding and the initial battles become entertaining occasions for fancy horse tricks, barn burnings, gunfights and bloodshed. The men seem to enjoy the brotherhood of slaughter and use the Civil War as an excuse to release testosterone. Jonathan Rhys Meyers, while adding to the cast of visually appealing young males, should never be seen in Civil War costume again. He looks like a rock star attempting to cut a hip urban cowboy image for a music video rather than the blood-thirsty, Roedel-hating Bushwacker Pitt Mackeson. Why Mackeson actually hates Roedel...
...many voiceovers quoting directly from the book simply aren't sufficient to transfer the spirit, humor and pathos from the page to the screen. While multiple themes may have worked in the book, they take away from any strong focus the film might have had. Parker should have chosen from a few of the many themes that run wild through the movie: the father/son relationship, religion, storytelling, education, poverty and class struggles are all jumbled together in a coming-of-age format. Instead of being rabidly faithful to the book and trying to include four out of every five anecdotes...
...camp after a raid, Lee imposes a layer of complexity on the film, for George Clyde (Simon Baker) has a black slave, Daniel Holt (Jeffery Wright) in his company. Holt serves the confederate cause, and his unique position as a slave torn between loyalty for his master and boyhood friend, Clyde, and his desire for freedom, adds the most intriguing and ironic layer to the film...
...opening scene is an antebellum wedding for the wealthy, giving the film a Gone With The Wind air. Commenting that weddings are just another "peculiar institution," two boys on the verge of manhood, Jake "Dutchie" Roedel (Tobey Maguire) and Jack Bull Chiles (Skeet Ulrich) suddenly decide they must become active participants in the preservation of the Southern way of life. Yet this brief conversation fails to justify the movie's dramatic tension. For Roedel and Chiles, risking life and limb is simply one more game. The charade is pervasive, as Ulrich looks entirely out of place in his Civil...
...pleasant afternoon fades into a Jayhawk raid on a slave-owning farm. This rapid transition lets Lee quickly establish the historical subtext for the film. Lee's unique insight in exploring a different angle of the Civil War, namely the conflict in Missouri between Kansas Jayhawkers (fighting to destroy slavery) and Bushwackers (Southern guerillas), should be commended. Lacking ties with the established armies, these "irregulars," traveling in bands such as the one Roedel and Chiles join, rode through the countryside killing innocent people and destroying enemy farms...