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THIS well-intentioned but ultimately ineffective historical biopic depicts the real life story of Confederate army deserter Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey) during the brutal American Civil War who returned to Mississippi and led a group of similarly disaffected and ill-treated freedom fighters against the local oppressive government.

However, virtuously proposed it may be, there’s something disappointingly stilted and dry about the way the events are depicted.

Overlong and overcooked, it lacks the palpable urgency, thematic complexity and raw power of the likes of Oscar-winners 12 Years a Slave and Selma, which both deal with the issue of historical US slavery and racism in a much more effective way.

McConaughey never lacks compelling intensity in the lead role of a man who abandoned his forced military duty in favour of finding a semblance of freedom for himself and other like-minded souls. And he heads up a solid, albeit underused, cast of character actors like Keri Russell (The Americans), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Belle) and Mahershala Ali (House of Cards).

But the film’s clunky structure makes it hard to stay engaged, staying slowly paced in one segment before skipping like a stone throughout various times and events as the group try to survive in the Mississippi swamps. All the while throwing up entirely unneeded text on-screen to spoon feed us information.

It also bizarrely jumps back and forth between the mid-19th century and a court case more than eight decades later that aims to draw parallels between the film’s central events and its historic consequences but merely distracts from the main thrust of the story.

There’s no doubting the power behind the real life story and the noble intentions that have gone into telling it. But it’s that lack of focus and attempt to cover so much ground that keeps it from being a satisfying look at a vital period of American history.


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