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Amistad (Thx)
List Price: $9.99Price: $0.97 You Save: $9.02 (90%)Prices subject to change.
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Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9780783227276
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, THX, NTSC
ISBN: 0783227272
Label: Dreamworks Video
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language),
Manufacturer: Dreamworks Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Dreamworks Video
Release Date: November 10, 1998
Running Time: 155 minutes
Studio: Dreamworks Video
Theatrical Release Date: December 10, 1997
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Editorial Review:
Steven Spielberg's most simplistic, sanitized history lesson, Amistad, explores the symbolic 1840s trials of 53 West Africans following their bloody rebellion aboard a slave ship. For most of Schindler's List (and, later, Saving Private Ryan) Spielberg restrains himself from the sweeping narrative and technical flourishes that make him one of our most entertaining and manipulative directors. Here, he doesn't even bother trying, succumbing to his driving need to entertain with beautiful images and contrived emotion. He cheapens his grandiose motives and simplifies slavery, treating it as cut-and-dry genre piece. Characters are easy Hollywood stereotypes--"villains" like the Spanish sailors or zealous abolitionists are drawn one-dimensionally and sneered upon. And Spielberg can't suppress his gifted eye, undercutting normally ugly sequences, such as the terrifying slave passage, which is shot as a gorgeous, well-lit composition. At its core, Amistad is a traditional courtroom drama, centered by a tired, clichéd narrative: a struggling, idealistic young lawyer (Matthew McConaughey) fighting the crooked political system and saving helpless victims. Worse yet, Spielberg actually takes the underlying premise of his childhood fantasy, E.T. and repackages it for slavery. Cinque (Djimon Hounsou), the leader of the West African rebellion, is presented much like the adorable alien: lost, lacking a common language, and trying to find his way home. McConaughey is a grown-up Elliot who tries communicating complicated ideas such as geography by drawing pictures in the sand or language by having Cinque mimic his facial expressions. Such stuff was effective for a sci-fi fantasy about the communication barriers between a boy and a lost alien; here, it seems like a naive view of real, complex history. --Dave McCoy
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Educational and Entertaining!
The film brings to the screen the 1839 Amistad incident when a slave ship experiencing a rebellion was seized by the U.S. Navy and towed into an American port. Subsequently, a trial will commence with the Cuban slavers, the Spanish government, and U.S. naval officers all vying for custody of the slaves while pitted at the same time against those supporting their release and safe return to Africa. The film provides for a very good description of the pre-Civil War era along with people and events slowly ... Read More
Rating: - More of a personal experience, than a review
Historically accurate this in your ganeckdagazoink. It is like the intellectuals who pan 'Troy', either 1. because its not accurate historically,or 2. because it was a travesty to have Brad Pitt play the greatest warrior ever. That is neither here nor there, however magic comes sometimes when you least expect it. I believe firmly, that in the movie industry it is hardly ever about how talented you are, you can always, for the most part, hone the craft, but more about luck, as most professional actors (or ... Read More
Rating:  - Great story drowned in syrup
What an opportunity for a great film: the drama, the tragedies, the historical crossroads, the meaning for US history in the state of birth...
I am often opposed to remakes, but this story would deserve a competent serious new version without the cute little Hollywood cliches and without the music that envelops everything in sugar coating.
I am not sure which parts of the tale are historic and which are added by the script writer or Spielberg. I find it hard to believe in John Quincy Hopkins, ... Read More
Rating: - amistad
dvd came in very short time, in great condition, and played extremely well, with no skips, interruptions.
Rating: - Hisotical fact over entertainment
Over the years since this film first came out it has received something of a love hate relationship with viewers. Amazon have provided their own review filled with the sneers and sarcasm that have resulted more from critics knee jerk pandering to the masses than serious critical review. Others have pushed the old "political correct" Motive behind the film (For anyone who doesn't know, political correct roughly translates as "Something I disagree with, usually something I deem to be either left wing regardless ... Read More
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