Amistad

After directing Schindler's List, Steven Spielberg took an extended break from directing, but returned with an impressive three films within a 14 month period, starting with The Lost World: Jurassic Park in May 1997, Amistad in December 1997, and Saving Private Ryan in July 1998. With this film, Spielberg tackles a lesser known chapter of American history and presents it in lavish fashion and a top notch cast. 

In 1839, the ship Spanish ship La Amistad is traveling the Atlantic ocean carrying slaves captured in Africa. Cinique (played by Djimon Hounsou) is able to break free from his chains and leads a mutiny against the crew of the ship. They spare the lives of two navigators to help sail them back to Africa. Instead, the navigators misdirect them and the ship winds up on the East Coast of America. Captured by the U.S Navy, the living Africans are imprisoned as runaway slaves. In an unfamiliar country and not able to speak a word of English, the Africans find themselves in deep trouble as a variety of charges are leveled against them. District Attorney William Holabird (played by Pete Postlethwaite) charges them with piracy and murder. Secretary of State John Forsyth (played by David Paymer), acting of behalf of President Martin Van Buren (played by Nigel Hawthorne), represents the claim made by Queen Isabella II of Spain (played by Anna Paquin) that the Africans are slaves and the property of Spain. Two Naval Officers claim them as Salvage while the two navigators produce a proof of purchase for the Africans. Meanwhile, a lawyer, Robert Sherman Baldwin (played by Matthew McConaughey), is hired by abolitionists Lewis Tappan (played by Stellan Skarsgard) and Theodore Joadson (played by Morgan Freeman) to defend the Africans, with some assistance from John Quincy Adams (played by Anthony Hopkins). 

This film is a curious one because on one hand it's a film that is incredibly well told about a chapter of history that until then not a lot of people knew about, myself included. The production is lavish and I felt it did an incredibly good job of capturing the time period. The film is really well paced and keeps the viewers interest. The film has a fantastic opening with the hijacking of the ship and the Africans trying to figure out how to sail a ship and navigate the high seas. I would've just watched a movie about that as that was the strongest segment of the film. Once the ship is discovered and the Africans are captured, the film settles down into a courtroom drama. It's still an interesting and compelling film, but one that felt a little familiar. There are aspects of this part of the film that I really liked, like Baldwin and Cinique having to find a way to communicate with one another when neither one speaks the other's language (they eventually find a translator, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor). Also, Baldwin trying to explain the complexity of the United States Government and Courts System to the Africans, who were not used to something like that at all, was interesting to me as well. Where the film starts to fall apart for me, as a history buff, is the film's attempts to place itself in a larger historical context. Throughout the film there is repeated talk about growing tensions between the North and the South and that the outcome of this case could surely lead to Civil War. Except, when the Amistad case was resolved in 1841, the Civil War was still twenty years off and this would have been a distant memory for most people, if remembered at all. The film further falters as characterizing itself as a turning point in American perception of Slavery. As absurd as it may seem to us today, there could be discussion about setting the Africans free, as the Atlantic Slave Trade had already been shut down and outlawed by this point, while allowing domestic slave trading to continue.

The acting in the film is about as good as you'd expect from such a talented cast. Matthew McConaughey leads the ensemble cast and does well in the role (even if at times it does feel like he's repeating his role in A Time to Kill). Djimon Hounsou is great as Cinique and this was his big breakout performance as well. Morgan Freeman has a nice supporting role as the, unfortunately fictional, Theodore Joadson, and has a nice moment when his character is helping Baldwin search for evidence on the Amistad and comes face to face with the conditions on a slave ship a handles it about as well as one would expect. Anthony Hopkins is having fun playing John Quincy Adams, at that point a former President and current member of Congress.    

Overall, Amistad doesn't quite succeed in capturing the emotional weight it wants to have. It's an interesting movie and one that would certainly be of interest to History buffs. It really only falters when it tries to pretend the events depicted are more important in the grand scheme of history than it really was. In the grand scheme of Spielberg's films, it falls somewhere in the middle for me. It's not his worst, but it's not up there with his classics either.