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Title: Ride With The Devil
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents, there is some graphic war violence and mild language. Recommended for ages 16 and up. |
People say that it’s a miracle good movies get made at all. I want to add that it’s a miracle good movies are seen at all. Though less of a problem now that we have the budding DVD and BluRay market, there was a time when movies would get made and not given wide releases for one reason or another. Ang Lee’s “Ride With The Devil” fell prey to racial politics that prompted the studio - who had originally planned for this to be a major summer blockbuster - on the back burner and bury it in the rental market. Which is a shame because while not a perfect film “Ride With The Devil” is a very good one. It’s competently made and beautifully shot. The movie has an ensemble cast including Toby McGuire, Jewel, and Jeffory Wright.
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The movie is unlike most Civil War movies in that it follows not really one of the “sides” of the war, but the outcasts who get caught in the middle of it. Northerners and Southerners. Alright, so the point of view is mainly told from the Southerners, but there is a different angle here as well. The protagonists in this film are from parts of the South where slavery isn’t much of an issue. Jake (McGuire) doesn’t own any cotton fields or slaves, yet he see’s friends houses getting burned to the ground and looted. Men are killed too. Not women though, because these men do have their morals. In response Jake joins a team of men who use guerilla war tactics on their enemy. Their enemy is anyone who participates in what they see as a pointless war.
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Another key character is Holt (Wright), a black man who actually fights for the South. He was a recently freed slave and he believes the war is about more then just slavery, though the look in his eyes show to us that he knows he is still a second class citizen. These are the two major stories in the film but there are several others in here as well. I won’t go into them too much though because this is a carefully crafted film of multiple stories with layers, and if I were to describe them all this would be a movie synopses instead of a review. While this is by no means a fast film it builds itself successfully so that by the time the climax comes around it’s a great payoff that was well worth the wait.
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Upon release of the film it’s clear Universal didn’t know what they had. Released in a mere eight theaters on opening day, it grossed just slightly more then $64,000 and went straight to the rental market where Jeffery Wrights image was kept off the cover in fear of the controversy. I think this is a shame because while it’s not Lee’s best film by any stretch of the imagination it is a well made film that raises some complex questions and tells an interesting story. The movie has been saved from obscurity by Criterion Collection and I’m hoping with their seal of approval more people will seek this film out and get to discover what is truly a lost gem.
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