The Butler (2013)

Lee Daniels', the Butler, is an amazing film that includes the right amount of playful banter to make it a light-hearted civil rights film, rather than a bash on racial segregation. The cinematography of this movie helps speak to the audience, evoking the emotions felt in the actual times of the civil rights movement. The graininess of the movie's quality adds to the mood, where it makes us feel poor and insubstantial, almost like African-Americans back then. In my opinion, it does a very good job explaining what things were like back then, and how they evolved with new presidents. It is interesting to start the movie in the late 1800's and move throughout time up until the late 70's. This film teaches about bigotry in an entertaining, yet mellow way where it does not feel like a racial attack or mockumentary. Overall, I highly recommend this movie to anyone who likes documentaries but cannot stand the basic, boring commentated kind.

I think it was better than Hidden Figures because it focused more on world events rather than why Dorothy can't become a NASA supervisor or Katherine can't use the NASA "white ladies restroom". If indeed you could shoot a black man in the head in front of his kid in 1929, that also surprised me! I lived in Macon for a year, that town is about 80% black. So I don't know if that could be done then but most cops there are black now. I found it odd to read a review by a 63 yr. old men who was shocked by the film, as if he never knew all this stuff went on. Of course, what did they teach in high school social studies, BAKING? This film covered far more than Hidden Figures and explored multi-generational racial struggles within the USA from 1929 onward, from the aspect of Cecile's family. They did overlook the Rosa Parks "back of the bus" story but covered Kennedy and King's assassination, then the rise of the Black Panthers plus a Whitehouse agenda cooked up by then VP Richard Nixon (John Cusack) to deal with them. That was a fact I was not familiar with. I also noticed the dissension between father and son over the son's goal to fight racism and the costs to the family that fight brought them. The important turning point for Cecile was walking away from his butler career and reconciling with his kid. They did not mention whether this was based on a true story but I don't recall any noteworthy Whitehouse butler with this kind of history on public record.If you like films like "Jackie" or "LBJ" you'll be cool with this.

This movie was completely captivating, from the horrors of the opening scene with slaves forced to pick cotton in the segregated South, to the racial struggles of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's, to Barack Obama winning the Presidency in 2008. IMHO, this movie should be required viewing for every high school student in America for graduation!Gladly gave this phenomenal film 10* out of 10!!!

From humble beginning as the son of a cotton-picker, an African American rises to a post as butler at the White House, overseeing the tenures of eight American Presidents and several civil rights movements in this semibiographical film. The main reason to see the movie is Forest Whitaker's lead performance as a man who rises high by learning to keep his mouth shut, and Whitaker does well incorporating repressed emotions into his performance until it reaches the point where he feels it is finally right to make a stance. Covering years upon years of White House history, the film sometimes feels episodic and certain presidential reigns feel overlooked, with the majority of time spent on Eisenhower and Reagan's years in office and precious little on Nixon (though John Cusack as Nixon does have an excellent scene early on during his vice presidency days). Intriguing as the insight into the running of the White House is, it is also hard to deny that the events on the outside are far more interesting - in particular, a group of African American activists undergoing training in which they are pushed around and spoken violently to in preparation for a stance at a diner. On that note, David Oyelowo is well cast as one of Whitaker's sons who becomes very embroiled in the politics of the day. Some have complained about the film being lengthy, sentimental and melodramatic, all of which may be true, but with Whitaker so well cast in the lead role as his character ages over several decades (great makeup effects), this is nevertheless a surprisingly engaging experience while it lasts.