User Reviews

Greetings again from the darkness. Persistence. It's the word used to describe "runners" by the man known for tracking the slaves who try to escape the abusive treatment and back-breaking work of plantations. However, the word can also be used to describe how the movie industry 'persists' in bringing us stories about how white slave owners created a brutal environment for black slaves. We really do get it. The history is awful and the treatment is inexcusable. It's just difficult to understand how more movies are going to make any difference in what happened 150 years ago.

Steve McQueen's 12 YEARS A SLAVE was released in 2013 and won the Oscar for Best Picture. In that film, Solomon Northrup was a free man dragged into slavery. In this film, Peter (Oscar winner Will Smith, KING RICHARD) has never known freedom, but fights for it. Both are based on true stories, and the biggest difference is in the scripts. The first was a terrific script that established many characters and told a remarkable tale. This latest film focuses too much on action pieces (a specialty of director Antoine Fuqua, TRAINING DAY,2001), and really boils down to two distinct segments: a chase scene and a battlefield. While thrilling to watch, neither segment delivers anything near the emotional heft of McQueen's movie.

Will Smith spent decades carefully cultivating an image of a nice guy playing characters that were easy to root for. All of that recently changed in the blink of a slap. This first role since that stunning on stage event seems designed to get his career and reputation back in line. Peter is a man-of-faith, a beloved family man, and a lifelong slave from Haiti. When he is separated from his wife Dodienne (Charmaine Bingwa) and kids in order to go build a railroad for the confederate army, he vows to return to them. Not long after, he overhears that President Lincoln has freed the slaves, and so he plans his escape. As a "runner", he is tracked by Jim Fassell, played with the cold, steely eyes of Ben Foster. Foster is mostly relegated to riding a horse and following his dogs, but he does get one campfire scene to explain the racism he was born into.

The cat and mouse game of life and death between pursuer and runaway takes up more than half of the film's run time, and most of it sloshes through the swamps of Louisiana. Snakes, gators, injuries, and the challenges of water all present obstacles for Peter to complete his journey to Baton Rouge, without being killed. The story (written by Bill Collage) has been drawn from the infamous "Whipped Peter" photo that was used to bring the atrocities of slavery to the masses, and has since appeared in many history books. It's recreated here in a short scene, one that probably deserved a bit more screen time. As for the Civil War battlefield, it continues the fantastic work of cinematographer Robert Richardson, a three-time Oscar winner. In fact, the entire film is a work of visual art, filmed in what has the look of black and white, with only splashes of muted color for effect. For those seeking another film on slavery, you'd be hard pressed to find a better looking one than this. Just don't expect it to dig deep for meaning.

The film will have a limited theatrical run and opens on AppleTV+ on December 9, 2022.

It makes no sense that the "masters" spent so much time chasing the slaves only to just kill them off, rather than trying to get them back to their camp. A large majority of the movie is of Peter running through the swamp while the dogs chasing him are right on his tail, yet not close enough. I thought the acting played by will smith was subpar and the movie dragged. They could've made the film 20 minutes shorter and taken out a lot of the running around. Although the movie moved slowly, I still find this time in history to be shocking and it was interesting to see how it played out. Overall, ok at best.

I know they have to move the movie along but him running into his friends in the swamp after they separated was a bit unrealistic. Also there being a horse trail every 5 feet in a swamp. And the fact the guy on the horse was like 30 seconds behind him but never caught up to him, them left only to be behind him later. Then the burning house, he walks straight up to it, then once inside takes 10 min to walk with a strange stance in one room. He never picks up a gun or a dry pair of boots. 2 dogs vanish from the chase the moment it was time to shoot a dog. The alligator fought like a pool toy. He never looks in the boxes on the beach. The cannons were doing no damage compared to the guns but were the main focus. He yells and yells for his wife 3 feet to the left. Who with only 20 men there she should have noticed him. There were too many "wait what? " moments in the movie for me to not be removed from what I am watching .

It was a solid anti slavery action thriller. I liked the concept which appeared to be a more serious concept version of Django Unchained and a mix between the Tarantino classic and 12 Years a Slave.

Antoine Fuqua presented his own film and thats what I liked about it, he did not try to copy the famous two classics but made something on his very own. In recent Academy Award winner Will Smith he found a fantstic actor (who ironically was a front runner for the Django Unchained lead ) who gives a strong, brave and powerful performance . The type of performance itself is compareable to Lenoardo DiCaprio in "The Revenant". Its an extremly phyiscal role and while DiCaprio famously fought a bear, we see Will Smith fighting an alligator. But Smith does great from the beginning to the end and once again delivers one of his finest performances. The other cast member worth to mention is Ben Foster who gave a silent and very menacing performance that goes right under your skin. He has a fantastic monologue in the middle of the film. One of the best supporting performances I have seen this year so far.

While I loved those two performances I was a bit let down by the film in general. It has fantastic action and battlefield scenes, but becomes quickly very monotone which causes certain lenghts, especially in the mid section of the film. I think they could have worked a bit longer in the editing room to speed up the pacing. Also while there are some great shots by cinematographer Robert Richardson, I found the film too dark and grey for its own sake.

Still worth to see, not the classic I was anticipating.

This has Hollywood over-dramatization written all over it. The black and white with a few pops of color make it look like a high schooler thought of a brilliant never before used method of artistic cinematography, and sadly, this method is old and sophomoric.

The minute I saw an alligator launch itself out of the water to attack Smiths character, I couldn't help but laugh at loud. Just stop. The director must have thought "How can I make this movie instantly more stupid." We cannot take a movie like the horrific indentured servitude in any serious manner when you film a scene like an unprovoked alligator attack. After that I was almost waiting for will smith to cover himself in mud to hide himself from the Predator.