Review of Free State of Jones (2016) by Jason C — 26 Jun 2016

Free State of Jones is a story that is relevant to any pre or post period in the United States, and people who pay attention to the world around them will understand what its relevance in todays day and age. Unfortunately, as far as entertainment value goes, there's little to be found. IT'S TWO HOURS AND TWENTY MINUTES LONG! Man alive. If I needed someone to preach to me that long I'd have gone to church on Friday evening. Even though there are a number of characters who could have been developed more for entertainment, the focus stays on Newton Knight. There are plenty of reasons to have developed those characters as well. As the movie progresses and characters are lost (it's a war movie, I'm not giving anything away) I didn't care very much because they're all minor characters. But I could see where hiring another big named actor would have had so much more impact. I just sat and waited for the next scene to progress to Newton could preach to me some more. There's a sub-story that ended up not being impactful either. I learned a little, but that's not exactly why I went to watch Free State of Jones. I thought McConaughey did a good job for what he was asked to do, but focusing the movie on him without another strong actor was a gigantic flaw in Free State, especially when the movie is TWO HOURS AND TWENTY MINUTES LONG!

Unless you're a history buff, or just curious about Free State of Jones, there's no reason to see it.

Warning: it's graphic. EXTREMELY so.