An average movie

Even though Robert Redford managed to win the Academy award for the best picture with his directing debut, ‘Ordinary People’, he never really managed to become a really great director like Clint Eastwood for example (on the other hand, Eastwood is probably the only one who managed to have such great careers both as an actor and as a director). Still, I always had a weak spot for Redford’s work as a director so I was really eager to check this out. Recently, I have seen and really loved ‘Lincoln’ by Spielberg and this movie was a nice companion piece. Unfortunately, I didn’t really blow me away though. I mean, the directing was solid and the cast was really impressive (James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Kevin Kline, Evan Rachel Wood, Tom Wilkinson, Justin Long, Danny Huston, Colm Meaney, Alexis Bledel, Toby Kebbell, Norman Reedus). However, I had a hard time to care about the whole story. I mean, it was mildly interesting but far from being spellbinding in my opinion. Of course, it is pretty obvious that the poor woman didn’t deserve to die but, come on, this country was at war and some pretty despicable sh*t happened back then. The whole point of this movie is that the constitution should be respected regardless if there is peace or war. Sorry, I don’t mean to be mean or anything but that’s extremely naive in my opinion. Indeed, any country in times of war or any major crisis will disregard many laws, constitutions, bills of rights or whatever. That’s how the world goes, I’m afraid. So, I had a hard time to care about this woman’s fate (without mentioning how many times a black man was judged and consequently hung without a fair trial). Still, in spite of its flaws, it remains a well made historical drama with a very strong cast and it is definitely worth, especially if you like the genre.

6/10