Review of Amistad (1997) by Ratnakar S — 08 Jun 2014

With an excellent cast lined up under the direction of Steven Spielberg, Amistad sounded like a film with premium potential.

From the simple intro of Amistad, it reveals just how powerful the skill of Steven Spielberg's direction on the story is. As he loves being one of cinema's most versatile and critically acclaimed filmmakers, Steven Spielberg takes the opportunity in Amistad to tackle slavery in a big scale and complicated story.

The first thing that he shows off is the style of the film. The intro in Amistad is one of the most dramatically powerful things that he has ever crafted because it uses the effect of flashing lights and thunderous sound effects to emphasise the drama of slaves overthrowing the titular ship La Amistad. The scene is executed excellently and it shows off the visual style which Steven Spielberg has crafted for the film in a sequence of dramatic excellence which immediately reveals the quality that Amistad will then hold.

It also reveals the technical aspects of the film which reinforce its realism. Using atmospheric cinematography which emphasises a lot of things well and captures the large scale of events at the same time, Amistad has a great look to it. And it is reinforced by the excellent production design and costumes of the film. And if you look closesly, you can see that Amistad has a certain rough visual quality to it which gives it a certain sepia-ish blur and reinforces the aged feeling that comes with Amistad. And its general sense of colour has a certain sense of monochrome since the majority of the colour in Amistad maintains a lot of gritty tones of grey and brown. So Steven Spielberg injects an excellent visual style into Amistad which makes it a memorable visual experience. The musical score of the film also adds to the atmosphere and gives it some good dramatization at the right moments of time.

Amistad is a long film which is understandable because the scale of the story in the film is fairly big and deserves a lot of time for it to be honestly told, but the slow pace of the film may disrupt the experience of viewers. The story plays around a lot inside and outside of the courtroom because it emphasises a lot of the small aspects that contribute to courtroom proceedings which both make the film realistic and decrease the speed of its pacing for better or for worse. For me I found that this was for worse, and when the story of the film was outside the courtroom I felt as if it just sort of stretched itself on a bit with a bit much talking. Amistad keeps itself focused on the story most of the time, but it is a long, slow and very talkative feature which spends a lot of time establishing the cultural norms of the time of its setting. This is good because it ensures that viewers have a meaningful understanding of everything that is happening, but it also means that Amistad stretches the limits of its dialogue a lot. I guess what I'm saying is that the story makes a firm effort to involve viewers deeply and the script captures the heart of the story well with great dialogue, but there is no denying that it stretches itself and plays around a bit. I guess that's natural, but it affected the entertainment value for me.

But still, thanks to Steven Spielberg's direction and the constant dedication from a powerful cast, Amistad began well and just went further into successful roots as it progressed.

Dijmon Hounsou's leading performance in Amistad is a serious breakthrough for him in a performance which revealed the kind of talent he would later gain two Academy Award nominations for. The thing that makes his performance great is the fact that he is fearless. He has no problem stepping into the role and he does it with such raw emotional strength and ferocity that it is an unforgettable performance. He doesn't have way too many lines and a lot of his performance is built on physical acting, but he does it so consistently powerfully with true immersion into the role and when it comes time for him to talk he executes his lines with real strength. His performance is a brutally powerful one, and he constantly makes the film compelling when he is present.

But Anthony Hopkins is the screen stealer in Amistad. Under the visual guise of excellent makeup which makes him look identical to the character he is playing, Anthony Hopkins completely nails the role of John Quincy Adams in one of the most inspired performances of his career. He is unbiasedly dedicated to his performance and delivers his words with serious wisdom and passion which makes it seem like one of the roles he was born to play. And although his screen time is limited, he completely nails the part with such an admirably compelling effort. Anthony Hopkins gives the best performance of the cast in Amistad, and it is definitely one of his best.

Matthew McConaughey also gives a powerful performance in Amistad because he is suck a likable and compelling character, and he speaks the words of his part with true depth and understanding which is fairly impressive. It is one of the best dramatic performances from early on in his career, and considering that he has gone as far as winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in recent times, it is great to see just how far he has come.

Morgan Freeman also gives a powerful supporting performance, and Nigel Hawthorne, David Paymer, Pete Poslethwaite and Stellan Skarsgard also give powerful supporting performances.

So although it's a long and slow paced film, Amistad reveals another effective foray into a film about civil rights for Steven Spielberg which is visually excellent and scripted very well which means that the actors are able to give nothing but their best in the end which is exactly what happens.