Word: mcconaughey
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...crammed, awaiting their fate, an astonishing evocation of the terrors of the slave ships' notorious Middle Passage--Spielberg permits himself time to explore every aspect of his saga in rich detail. And he grants his actors--among them a warily compassionate Morgan Freeman as a black abolitionist; Matthew McConaughey as a puppyish lawyer growing into an attack dog; Anthony Hopkins as John Quincy Adams, bent with age and crotchets, but finally lending his eloquence to the cause--a similar latitude. It's a shame that Amistad's release has been polluted with charges of plagiarism, for what...
...including Queen Isabella II of Spain, the Spaniards on board the ship, representatives from Cuba and a pair of British naval officers made claims to ownership of the ship and its cargo of slaves once it turned up on American shores. Abolitionists, here portrayed by Morgan Freeman and Matthew McConaughey, tried to have the slaves set free altogether...
...McConaughey's lawyer wins his case before a series of judges and succeeds in having the slaves declared not the legal property of Spain and instead free. But President Martin Van Buren (Nigel Hawthorne) intervenes so as to appease the pro-slavery South, and the case eventually goes to the Supreme Court. Former President John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins) comes out of retirement to argue the case in that historic venue...
Following in the footsteps of his friend Matthew McConaughey, Damon landed the lead in The Rainmaker--a Francis Ford Coppola film. Then, the script which he and his best friend Ben Affleck wrote together, Good Will Hunting, was finally picked up by Mira-max--the brilliant Gus Van Sant signed on to direct soon after. And next summer, Damon will headline in Steven Spielberg's World War II epic Saving Private Ryan...
Danny Glover, Virginia Madsen and Mickey Rourke are solid in their supporting roles. Matt Damon, however, isn't given much of a chance to show off his acting. Unlike McConaughey in A Time to Kill, Damon has to deal with a character void of nuance, subtlety and originality. His personality is best summed up in his much-repeated mantra, "I want to expose these people." Damon, struggling under the burden of such hackneyed lines, is given little chance to show sensitivity or idiosyncrasy. Over the course of the film, Rudy becomes less the hero and more of a stock supporting...