Review of Amistad (1997) by Fredricka R — 06 Apr 2014

A powerful and striking movie that made me want to look away more than once. It's a long movie but a good one and never dips to the manipulative ways to trick the audience into feeling bad. If you don't feel bad while watching this, however, that's quite disappointing to hear.

Sometimes however, there did seem to be some very silly moments and the subtitles were very inconsistent, sometimes they would be there for the duration of the scene when a character isn't speaking English, which makes sense, but sometimes they kept popping in and out.

For the first 20 minutes there aren't even ANY subtitles so you have no idea what any of the characters are passionately shouting about, maybe that's the point? But it doesn't seem like it makes any sense.

I thought I had a bootleg copy of the movie at the time, but soon enough the subtitles popped in. Anthony Hopkins' performance was a lot of fun, seeing his bumbling portrayal of Adams was great, sometimes funny but always convincing and its no surprise he got an Oscar nomination for this, I thought to myself he might have snagged a nomination while I was watching it and watching his last scene was amazing.

I was a little upset to find out that Djimon Hounsou was snubbed, I thought that he'd have won best lead actor for this or at least be nominated, just felt like his moment, he did some impressive preparation also.

With it's unforgettable imagery, beautiful soundtrack, striking performances this is a movie that will not be forgotten easily.