In the early part of the Nineteenth Century the status of black people in the United States was subject to much legal niceties. If a person was born in Africa found himself on American shores he was his own man, free to return there if he chose, However, those black people born on plantations in slave states or elsewhere in the hemisphere where slavery was still in force were property and if found on the lam would be promptly returned to their owners.

In 1839 the cargo of a small Spanish vessel sailing from Havana to Puerto Principe fell into a situation conditioned by that dichotomy. The ship was perversely called la Amistad, the Spanish for "friendship". One stormy Caribbean night one slave, designated Cinque by his owners (evidently they ran out of Spanish names and started in on the numbers) got busy one the anchors holding the chains and pried himself and his fellows loose. The two dozen of so slaves availed themselves of a stock of cane knives, long machete-like weapons, in the ship's cargo and started in on the crew. Only two were left alive. The slaves then decide to head back to Africa, a voyage the good ship Amistad was manifestly incapable of. After what must have been a very meandering trip the ended up on the shores of the United States where they were intercepted off the coast of Long Island by a government cutter. They were promptly bundled off to jail in New Haven, Connecticut while the court system began to grind away determining their status: property or people? Any result that ended as "property" meant return to Cuba and whatever creative form of execution awaited rebel slaves in the Spanish colonies. The stakes for the Africans were pretty high.

After the violent action of the uprising and somewhat comical trip to the US coast "Amistad" settles into a fairly standard-issue courtroom/detective story with a racial/slavery hook. The Africans are personified for the most part by Cinque. None of them speaks anything but their tribal languages. The rest, for the most part, serve as set dressing or a chanting chorus. Their dialog is only occasionally translated with subtitles, classic line: "I have an ugly feeling the dung scraper speaks for us." The Africans are the subject of no fewer than three claims on them as property as well as the claim of the Abolitionists who aver they are nobody's property but their own.

The story of the Amistad Africans is largely told through the lens of the Northern Abolitionists who worked for their freedom. The most prominent of these is Theodore Joadson (Morgan Freeman), a former slave from the dark wilds of Georgia. Joadson is cultured and urbane, an re-born sophisticate who's brush with the implements of slavery brings back an ugly memory or two. His partner is Lewis Tapan (Stellan Skarsgård) a blue-nose, New England minister who speaks in hushed tones (surely not to cover a Swedish accent). These two are not equal to the task before them so they engage the services of Roger Baldwin (Matthew McConaughey). Baldwin is a bit of an ambulance chaser (he's the one Cinque and Company evaluate as a dung-scraper.) Another eminence consulted by the Abolitionists is John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins), the 6th President of the United States. At the time of "Amistad" Adams had retired to a seat in the House of Representatives where he was regarded as a rather pathetic old codger. Adams was a politician and so wouldn't openly support Joadson and company but he drops the odd helpful hint. This is the Dream Team lined up against the governments of two countries, the US and Spain.

"Amistad" seeks to be a tale of the indomitably of the human spirit, the eternal long of the soul for freedom -- or something like that, The action (after the rebellion scenes at the beginning) tends to be a bit on the slow side with much of the story taking place in the courtrooms and jails. Only when their advocates finally learn to communicate with their clients and the story of Cinque's capture and nightmare Atlantic journey is told in flashback do things pick up. These scenes of the last years of the slave trade are some of the movie's most powerful and disturbing. Parents may want to think twice about letting the youngin's see this part of the film. Producer/Director Steven Spielberg deserves praise here for not traipsing down the same fantasy road as "Roots". Namely the fantasy that groups of white men prowled the African hinterlands capturing slaves for the New World. The reality was that other Africans (generally of the Islamic persuasion) took slaves on a regular and systematic basis many of which they sold to white men on the coast. "Amistad" is almost pathologically interested in historical authenticity.

The real payoff scene in this film occurs close to the end. President Martin Van Buren, the movie paints him as a corrupt SOB, arranged for the original verdict in favor of the Africans to be set aside and re-tried under more favorable conditions, when his side still lost things ended up before the Supreme Court, loaded down with Southerners. Here Mr. Adams is called upon to make one final plea on behalf of Cinque and the others. I have no idea of the historicity of this speech but here is where Spielberg pays off what has come before. Particularly affecting to me was during Adams discussion of the inevitable demise of slavery when he chillingly predicts "if this means civil war, then let it come."

For all of the gravity of the subject matter being considered by this movie Spielberg avoids the pedantic, preachy seriousness that could doom things. There is enough leavening of humor to prevent a grim pall from settling over the movie experience. An example of this is a brief scene where the African prisoners, the immediate dangers of the sea past them, settle down into tribes with different areas of the prison yard being the "turf" of various tribal groups, a phenomenon which completely mystifies their advocates. There is also a set of small scenes involving young Anna Paquin as Queen Isabella II of Spain (who was pressing for the return of the slaves -- at least her government was.). (Not Christopher Columbus' Queen Isabella, the other one) These scenes are cute but somewhat superfluous. (I love Anna Paquin, I probably wouldn't have had the heart to cut them out either.)

"Amistad" has an excellent cast and is technically flawless. Much care was lavished on location and set dressing, costumes and the like. The recounting of the rebellion on the Amistad are executed in surreal semi-stop motion as punctuated by strobeing lightning which is quite effective but goes on a bit to long becoming hard on the eyes. Considering the linguistic opacity, much of the African language dialog is not translated, Djimon Hounsou and the other African actors (who actually are from Africa) do an excellent job of inhabiting their roles. The cast is excellent Freeman is good, as usual, and McConaughey is decent as the "dung scraper" mercenary who rises to the moral level of the situation. Hopkins is nifty, as always, beneath the age make-up as the seeming dodderer Adams. Fifteen-year-old Anna Paquin is charming as the vein ditzy "little girl in a tiara" who, history informs us, grew up to be a ditzy young (and middle-aged)lady in a tiara. Stellan Skarsgård is really the only poor fit.

Parts of "Amistad" are quite violent but like another Spielberg opus "Saving Private Ryan" manages to be honest without wallowing it things. Probably not for the younger kiddies, though. There are some "National Geographic" style bare African breasts as well.

The tag-line of of "Amistad's" ad campaign insisted that "freedom has to be taken" (or something like that...) Other than the start of the movie where is crew of the not-so-good ship Amistad is committed to the wrong end of a cane knife, I'm not sure how much freedom is "taken" as opposed to bestowed by the US judicial system -- in good time... But, whatever the case.., "Amistad" will probably reward viewers looking for a weighty film experience.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older