Somewhere deep inside Steven Spielberg's latest film "Amistad" is a very compelling story that deserves to be told. Unfortunately, it is lost in a melee of poor performances, simplistic writing, sanctimonious preaching and an ultimately boring narrative. "Amistad" is the biggest disappointment of 1997.
The well-intentioned but ill-conceived film follows the story of the Spanish slave ship "La Amistad" where a mutiny takes place. Led by the African captive Cinque (Djimon Hounsou), the slaves kill the crew and take helm of the vessel which eventually winds up off the coast of Long Island.
Soon the courts must decide whether or not these Africans are free humans or merely cargo for the Spanish empire. Enter Baldwin, played weakly by Matthew McConaughy, the spiffy lawyer who is hired to represent the slaves by abolitionist Theodore Joadson (an oddly uncharismatic Morgan Freeman).
What follows is a boring string of court battles interspersed with scenes of Baldwin and Cinque trying to transcend their cultural, ethnic, and lingual differences.
The central issue of the trial boils down to whether or not the captives on the ship came from Cuba or Africa. If the former, then the Africans are cargo of the Spanish empire, but if the latter, then they are free human beings.
The message here is that humans should be free regardless of their geographical origin, but Spielberg relies on the courtroom drama too heavily to convey this idea. These scenes are cold, repetitive and lackluster. After two hours of debating the ship's course, the film's message is lost in tedium.
The film acknowledges that there are several political motives coming into play but never delves into them. These moments of the film are brief but very interesting. However, Spielberg seems so determined on confining the film to one message that these scenes are infrequent and emblematic of the overall lack of balance in the picture.
Luckily, Spielberg breaks up the monotony with a stirring depiction of the journey from Africa to the bloody revolt. Here the director is in his element of pure storytelling. Rather than getting fumbled up in stagnant dialogue, the film focuses on actions and images, some of which are incredibly searing.
The sight of dozens of people being tied to a chain and drowned in the ocean is haunting and very disturbing. For this brief moment, Spielberg is not concerned with telling us what he has to say but showing us instead, and in this way he is most effective.
Ultimately though, the film, for all its attempts at racial transcendence, is still a biased look at slavery. The Westerners receive the majority of screen time whereas the Africans have brief moments where they make a profound statement and that is about all.
There really is no character development with the Africans. That is reserved for Baldwin, Joadson and later John Quincy Adams -- played superbly by Anthony Hopkins. These characters are all afforded scenes where they converse, joke and ultimately communicate realistically, thus adding credibility to their characters.
As a result, the film is incredibly lopsided in that we have an idea of who everyone is except the Africans, arguably the most important characters in the story. This is the film's largest and least ignorable flaw. In Spielberg's far superior "Schindler's List," we meet several characters that we come to know by the end of the movie; therefore, the audience has a personal investment in the outcome.
"Amistad" does not give us that bond. Why couldn't Spielberg give us more scenes of the African's conversing, not just moralizing? True, these scenes would be subtitled, but that is a small expense to pay for the added depth the movie would have.
As a result the film portrays Africans as being capable of only two qualities: immense wisdom or irrational anger. Djimon Hounsou's performance does nothing but underscore this portrayal. Hounsou takes the easy way out with this role. Either he is enraged (and he does rage well) or he is prophetically calm.
However, Hounsou really does not grasp any of the subtleties of his role. When approached with something foreign or a setback in the case, Cinque does not make any attempts to understand the situation. He simply goes off in a spat of anger.
Yes, his anger is often justified, but his inability to show signs of controlling his rage or rationally approaching an ordeal perpetuates a very ugly notion that the Africans are simpleminded and not capable of dealing with obstacles.
This portrayal, juxtaposed with the American characters who are all, even in great frustration, able to be rational, gives the slaves a very backwards and stereotypical image in this film.
The only true bright spot in this two-and-a-half-hour drama is Anthony Hopkins. He is really the only actor who rises above the bland screenplay. His depiction of Adams is one of the great pieces of acting in the past year.
Unfortunately, we have to wait until the last half-hour for Hopkins to take over the film. Still, his talent shines here and even his shabby makeup and the hammy, omnipresent score by John Williams cannot take away from Hopkins' excellence.
"Amistad" should have been a better film. Spielberg should be lauded for bringing this story to the general public, but good intentions do not make a good film.
"Amistad" does not show any restraint. Despite some very vivid images scattered throughout the picture and Anthony Hopkins' wonderful acting, "Amistad" falls flat on its face--a pretentious, simplistic bore.
