Amistad (1997)

• Year: 1997
• Released: 25 Dec 1997
• Country: United States
• Adwords: Nominated for 4 Oscars. 11 wins & 43 nominations total
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118607/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Amistad
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/amistad
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English, Mende, Spanish, Portuguese
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Biography, Drama, History
• Runtime: 155 min
• Writer: David Franzoni
• Director: Steven Spielberg
• Cast: Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, Anthony Hopkins
• Keywords: historical figure, slavery, cuba, mutiny, sentence,

	7.3/10
	63/100
	77% – Critics
	79% – Audience

Amistad Storyline

Amistad is the name of a slave ship travelling from Cuba to the U.S. in 1839. It is carrying a cargo of Africans who have been sold into slavery in Cuba, taken on board, and chained in the cargo hold of the ship. As the ship is crossing from Cuba to the U.S., Cinque (Djimon Hounsou), who was a tribal leader in Africa, leads a mutiny and takes over the ship. They continue to sail, hoping to find their way back to Africa. Instead, they are misdirected and when they reach the United States, they are imprisoned as runaway slaves. They don’t speak a word of English, and it seems like they are doomed to die for killing their captors when an abolitionist lawyer decides to take their case, arguing that they were free citizens of another country and not slaves at all. The case finally gets to the Supreme Court, where John Quincy Adams (Sir Anthony Hopkins) makes an impassioned and eloquent plea for their release.

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Amistad Movie Reviews

Great until John Quincy Adams goes to court

It’s 1839, and the slaves imprisoned on the Amistad revolt against its crew. The slaves take over, but the two remaining crew tricked the Africans and sail the ship to America. There the Africans are imprisoned with various interests coming to fight over the slaves in court.

The slaves are led by Cinque (Djimon Hounsou). Djimon does a powerful job. At first, the abolitionist led by Tappan (Stellan Skarsgård) are more interested in martyrdom than the slaves’ freedom. A small property lawyer Roger Sherman Baldwin (Matthew McConaughey) takes over the case. It’s McConaughey’s performance that provide the perfect partnership to Hounsou. The best emotional scene is when the slave tries to interpret the story of Jesus from illustrations in the bible.

Eventually the case goes to the Supreme Court where former President John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins) takes over the defense. That’s where the movie struggles. Adams is reluctant at first, long winded, and superior. He does not form a compelling character. He talks like a politician. The story climax earlier then sidelines both McConaughey and Hounsou in favor of Hopkins.

The glossy horrors of Amistad

Beautifully told, it also made me go back to History books to double check or to confirm. That’s what good movies also do, they provoke you into wanting to know more. I loved Djimon Hounsou – a sensational film presence and his soulfulness permeates the whole journey. Anthony Hopkins is a remarkable John Quincy Adams. The great Steven Spielberg doesn’t shy away from the horrors and some of it is truly harrowing but even then the preciousness of the image protects you from excesses. I don’t know if that is a flaw or just a grand commercial concession. I couldn’t help trying to imagine, this story even the same script in the hands of an Arthur Penn for instance. After all of that, let me say I enjoyed it, I was moved and I will see it again.

The X-Mas Movie for the Masses

Movie Review: “Amistad” (1997)

Director Steven Spielberg fights through visions, creatively-spoken, of an unforgotten U.S. trauma to make sense into a delicate story of the slaveship “Amistad”, which brought West African Natives, personified in an overall-intense portrayal by actor Djimon Hounson, story-line supporting further cast as former U.S. president John Quincy Adams in a picture elevating performance by Sir Anthony Hopkins within a 1840s court room designed by Rick Carter and hot-spot-intense daylight-lit by cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, where the movie also produced by Steven Spielberg in the first year of releases under the banner of DreamWorks Pictures (est. 1994) with further budgetary infusions by U.S. pay-TV channel HBO (Home Box Office) to present a 150 minutes motion picture for the bargain of 36 Million U.S. Dollars that lives from the occasional passionate performances by their cast members and one controversial representation of stormy night to day-time business slaveship sequence, where the West African Natives get treated like animals under deck and second rate human beings on deck to skin-splicing, blood-spreading consequences, which handles the director with utmost dramatizing care under punchy sound design, over-done light reflections, yet shying away from an infant death under panicked flesh moving masses and a more delicate-received musical score by John Williams, making “Amistad” a movie to be watched with the family, leading to a gathered discussion on U.S. history over tea.

© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)