Free State of Jones (2016)

Absolutely loved this film . I know there is some inaccuracies as there is with Hollywood movies but what it has done for me , is it has made me look more into this period . I can't believe the professional critics views on this movie . Of all the movies about this period that have been made this is by far my best . Matthew is great when he's in the more darker roles

Horrible movie. High school theater bad. Matt is put in front of the same extras in every scene with long winded bad monologues. The same hills are used for multiple exterior shots to be different locations but it is clearly the same place. The same house has the furniture moved around to be different interiors. Just awful. Stupid and long.

Slavery, plantations and the fight for freedom are well documented and popular themes in many many films. 12 Years a Slave and Lincoln immediately spring to mind. So this is nothing new. Portraying this period of time is extremely saturated, so there cannot be any mediocrity. Unfortunately, Free State of Jones is just that. The true story of Newt Knight forming a rebellion against the confederacy in the 1860's. To ensure that all people are free and treated equally. A commendable and admirable man, choosing to fight for other people even if that means losing the ones closest to him. I can always find respect in people like Newt and sharing idealisms like his on film is important to show how far we have come as a society. The plot never feels preachy, it's told with good intentions and facts. Various photographs are embedded throughout with text to explain the historical events that followed. Matthew McConaughey looks the part, acts the part and becomes invested into his character. He really does steal every scene. The weak supporting characters assist in McConaughey's screen dominance but that's not always a good thing. I wasn't emotionally invested in any of the characters, at all. If a characters tragically meets their demise, there was no impact. I didn't feel anything and thus I was uninterested. Gary Ross' direction is fine albeit rather clinical and bland. The narrative was overstretched to 140 minutes when it didn't need to, we're talking nearly 10 years of confederacy rebellion. Why? The pace was ridiculously sluggish at points and the monotonous characters really did not help. The third act then starts to intertwine Newt's great grandson into the narrative who is wanting to get married but can't due to laws against interracial marriage. Yes, it shows that laws haven't changed but it felt so forced and unnecessary in order to showcase a point. All I can say is that the film is fine. It is bland mediocrity at its finest. Not bad but not great.

Movie Review: "Free State of Jones" (2016)Entirely carried by an raging on-screen portrayal, initiated through leading actor Matthew McConaughey as dramatized character of Confederation deserting Newton Knight under the direction of "Seabiscuit" (2003) director Gary Ross, who delivers also an overlong screenplay pushed into overlong editorial of a 130 Minutes by completely overthrown and emotionally-underminded editors Pamela Martin and Juliette Welfing, literally ruin an otherwise compelling motion picture on never-seen-before aftermath scenarios on the U.S. Civil-War, raging over the North American continent with believed 1,000,000 immigrant-deceding U.S. people dead in just four years between 1861 and 1865, when rebel-region organizing ultra-republic-indulging character Knight must fight in a seemingly-desolated Southern American environment designed to plain non-cinematic splendors by production designer Philip Messina, when visual coverage by cinematographer Benoit Delhomme tends to fail under fast-track mainly hand-held shotlist, when an 50 Million Dollar budget raised by an indecisiveness-prolonging army of producers, co-producer and executives alike cost "Free State of Jones" not only an financial return on an independently-received investment, but also the favors of the domestic audiences in early U.S. domestic releases of Summer 2016, when it could have been strategical improvement to set motion picture exhibitions on an emotionally inbounding pre-Thanksgiving release date, when additional calmer-received suspense-pushing editorial cuts to coming in with focus on an action-oriented running time of a 105 minutes in order to share justice with an hardship-enduring below-the-line crew as emotionally fully-prepared Matthew McConaughey; and then again a close-to-buried supporting cast performed by uprising performers Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mahershala Ali as spellbinding Moses.FAZIT: Picture declined (wasted) © 2018 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)