Review of Emancipation (2022) by Mauro_Lanari — 22 Dec 2022

(Mauro Lanari).

The photo of "Whipped Peter", entitled "The Scourged Back" and published in 1863 in "Harper's Weekly", is the cue for "Emancipation". And if it's more stirring than the film's 132 minutes, maybe it's because Fuqua and Smith, here also executive producers as well as director and star, have stepped out of their comfort zone. Historical epic on the abolition of slavery during the American Civil War and redemptive gesture after the slap to Chris Rock at the Academy Awards: an Apple product as artificial as the (a-)chromatic choice of the iPhone. Half a dose of "12 Years a Slave" (McQueen 2013), the other half of "The Revenant" (Iñárritu 2015), a sprinkling of "The Book of Eli" (Hughes Brothers 2010), and the result is on the shelves and in the windows of the best stores, oops: in the catalog for the platform's subscribers.