Amistad [VHS]

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	Actor(s):	Djimon Hounsou Matthew McConaughey Anthony Hopkins Morgan Freeman Nigel Hawthorne
	Video by:	Dreamworks Video
	Sales Rank:	145839

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Product Details/Specifications

Actor(s):
Djimon Hounsou
Matthew McConaughey
Anthony Hopkins
Morgan Freeman
Nigel Hawthorne

Creators:
Bob Cooper (Producer)
Bonnie Curtis (Producer)
Colin Wilson (Producer)
Debbie Allen (Producer)
Laurie MacDonald (Producer)
Paul Deason (Producer)
David Franzoni (Writer)

Director(s):
Steven Spielberg

Recording label: Dreamworks Video
EAN: 9780783227276
Binding: VHS Tape
ISBN: 0783227272
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, THX, NTSC,
Release Date: 1998-11-10
Universal product code (UPC): 096898365536
Number of discs: 1
Audience rating: R (Restricted)

Product Description
Product Details Actors: Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, Anthony Hopkins, Morgan Freeman, Nigel Hawthorne Directors: Steven Spielberg Writers: David Franzoni Producers: Bob Cooper, Bonnie Curtis, Colin Wilson, Debbie Allen, Laurie MacDonald Format: Closed-captioned, Color, THX, NTSC Language: English, Spanish Rated: R (Restricted) Number of tapes: 1 Studio: Dreamworks Video VHS Release Date: November 10, 1998 Run Time: 155 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
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

Running time: 155 minutes
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: Spanish (Original Language)