I liked this movie and thought it should have had a wider release. Its run was so short and there were so few showings that Tom and I had to go all the way across town to see it, and it's apparently disappearing from Las Vegas next week. However, it would have been a better movie if it had been shorter. It included a bunch of stuff that was not necessary to the story.
If the script had been edited down to just the stuff that actually relates to the title, the Free State of Jones and how it come to be, it would have been an excellent example of the war movie genre. The stirring victory could have been the third-to-last scene, with a couple of scenes of how things came out later -- the whole section about voter registration and voting could easily have been edited together into one scene, and the stuff about how agriculture was handled after the war could have been cut together into another one scene, and then the movie could have ended on another high note with Knight rescuing the child. The stuff about Knight's descendants could have been thrown onto the screen in text on the end, like many historical movies do. There were already several scenes that began with lots of text on the screen, especially towards the end, so that would have fit nicely with the rest of the movie. The first time they cut away from the middle of exciting fight scenes and character motivation scenes to show a different group of characters in a different century sitting around talking about ancestors and laws I literally turned to Tom and whispered, "What the hell?" We shrugged at each other. If I had been watching this on TV instead of in the theater I would have checked to make sure I was still on the same channel. Subsequent cuts away from the real story to this descendant stuff were not as confusing, but were still totally unnecessary to the story and interrupted it weirdly. The movie was way too long, including stuff that should have been edited out in the script stage, not just with the intercuts to the future but also with the stuff that occurred after there was no more Free State of Jones, after the end of the war. This was 2 different movies with the same characters glued back to back, plus a third of another different one with different characters chopped into it. Despite all that, the main story was so good I STILL think it's a great war movie.
Before I went to see this, I was a little bit concerned it might be another "white savior" movie like Dances With Wolves and its science fiction reboot Avatar, but it isn't. The main character isn't motivated by being some other culture's new Messiah, he's just a man fighting for his own reasons and his own family.
This movie was a fascinating look at a part of our history that I knew nothing about. Even Tom had not known about the Free State of Jones before, and he's been something of a Civil War buff. Why did we not know about this before? Why is this not taught in school? We knew about Texas being its own country once, so why not this? Everyone who cares about American history should see this. Since this is the end of its theatrical run, I guess most people will have to see it in a recorded medium or on TV.
Fun inside joke to pull: from now on the actor is just named McConna because the gh is silent.
If the script had been edited down to just the stuff that actually relates to the title, the Free State of Jones and how it come to be, it would have been an excellent example of the war movie genre. The stirring victory could have been the third-to-last scene, with a couple of scenes of how things came out later -- the whole section about voter registration and voting could easily have been edited together into one scene, and the stuff about how agriculture was handled after the war could have been cut together into another one scene, and then the movie could have ended on another high note with Knight rescuing the child. The stuff about Knight's descendants could have been thrown onto the screen in text on the end, like many historical movies do. There were already several scenes that began with lots of text on the screen, especially towards the end, so that would have fit nicely with the rest of the movie. The first time they cut away from the middle of exciting fight scenes and character motivation scenes to show a different group of characters in a different century sitting around talking about ancestors and laws I literally turned to Tom and whispered, "What the hell?" We shrugged at each other. If I had been watching this on TV instead of in the theater I would have checked to make sure I was still on the same channel. Subsequent cuts away from the real story to this descendant stuff were not as confusing, but were still totally unnecessary to the story and interrupted it weirdly. The movie was way too long, including stuff that should have been edited out in the script stage, not just with the intercuts to the future but also with the stuff that occurred after there was no more Free State of Jones, after the end of the war. This was 2 different movies with the same characters glued back to back, plus a third of another different one with different characters chopped into it. Despite all that, the main story was so good I STILL think it's a great war movie.
Before I went to see this, I was a little bit concerned it might be another "white savior" movie like Dances With Wolves and its science fiction reboot Avatar, but it isn't. The main character isn't motivated by being some other culture's new Messiah, he's just a man fighting for his own reasons and his own family.
This movie was a fascinating look at a part of our history that I knew nothing about. Even Tom had not known about the Free State of Jones before, and he's been something of a Civil War buff. Why did we not know about this before? Why is this not taught in school? We knew about Texas being its own country once, so why not this? Everyone who cares about American history should see this. Since this is the end of its theatrical run, I guess most people will have to see it in a recorded medium or on TV.
Fun inside joke to pull: from now on the actor is just named McConna because the gh is silent.