Review of Free State of Jones (2016) by Nate Z — 14 Jul 2016

It's actually kind of fascinating how The American Civil War has been pretty much eschewed by popular culture in recent years. Oh to be sure, regional and racial cleavages in society are politically and socially relevant with debates over the presence of the Confederate flag in southern states and the lingering specter of Jim Crow. But the war itself was once a favorite of Hollywood - see endless numbers of epics and westerns that used it as a backdrop from the silent film era on through the 60's. And it experienced a revival of sorts during the 90's following Ken Burns' legendary documentary and a few successful films such as Glory and Gettysburg. And then (not to be superficial and callous) following 9/11 and the earth shattering Saving Private Ryan, World War II reasserted itself once and for all as American popular culture's war of choice. If that sentence sounded absurd and sarcastic it was meant to be. Subsequent attempts to revive it have failed (Gods and Generals) and most Civil War movies have now entered B-movie status (Field of Lost Shoes). Lincoln succeeded, but that was mostly because it was a well-oiled political thriller with event status. (See Daniel Day Lewis play the 16th President of the United States!).

So why the hell have I bothered to rant about Civil War movies and not about the actual movie I'm reviewing? Well it's because there's not much to it. Free State of Jones is one of those off-beat historical dramas that manages to be more interesting than entertaining or even exceptional by cinematic standards. It concerns the real life story of Newton Knight, a Confederate deserter turned Southern Unionist who inspires an armed rebellion in Jones County - a region of Mississippi with impoverished yeoman farmers who were strongly opposed to Secession and had no stake in cash crop slavery. Knight cobbles together a renegade army of southern deserters, runaway slaves, and poor whites and eventually manages to overthrow Confederate authority in the region. Free State admirably tries to spend last third of its runtime on Reconstruction and how it utterly screwed over recently freed African-Americans in the south. This a film that seems for the most part, reasonably accurate, and you have to admire how much of a deliberate slow-burn drama it is.

But that slow pace injures the picture, as it ends up being an overly long and tiresome slog. The characters, other than our protagonist, are painfully underwritten and simply forgettable. Confederate Officers are cartoonishly evil, and their soldiers hapless stormtroopers, easily dispatched by Knight's freedom fighters. And while it does take aim at Southern "Lost Cause" mythology (a trope that plagued many older movies set in this period), its manner of doing so is overly simplistic. McConaughey always brings it and he apparently had enthusiasm for the project and it shows in his earnest delivery. And credit must be given to Mahershala Ali who manages to impress as a runaway slave turned firebrand. But the movie fails them, as it ends up looking like a low-budget TV movie that will end up playing on TNT back-to-back with Lawless and Legends of the Fall. It's also incredibly disjointed, with scenes from a related courtroom case in 1948 breaking up the flow and taking us out of the action. But more damningly, Free State lacks energy or inspiration and ends flatly. It's a history lesson to be sure, one to be broken up into two or three sessions for most. For history freaks such as myself and my friends, a beer or two over the full runtime will do just fine.