Stars: Morgan Freeman, Anthony Hopkins, Matthew McConaughey, Djimon Hounsou, David Paymer, Pete Postlethwaite, Stellan Skarsgard, Ralph Brown, Peter Firth, Nigel Hawthorne, Arliss Howard, Tomas Milian, Austin Pendleton, Paul Guilfoyle, Geno Silva, Jeremy Northam, Xander Berkeley, Victor Rivers, Darren E. Burrows, Daniel Von Bargen, Pedro Armendariz Jr., Nigel Hawthorne, Michael Massee, Anna Paquin, Rusty Schwimmer, Jake Weber, Allan Rich, John Ortiz, Anna Paquin, Austin Pendleton, Razaaq Adoti, Willie Amakye, Derrick N. Ashong, Luc Assogba, Mariah Campbell, Stephen Conteh, Roy Cooper, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Monguehy Fanzy, Abu Bakaar Fofanah, Jimmy Fotso, Adekunle Ilori, Sheriff Kargbo, Joseph Kosseh, Saye Lah, Sylvestre Massaquoi, Samson Odede, Chike Okpala, Willie Onafesso, Steve Passewe, Samuel Pieh, Lansana Sawi, Abu Sidique, Stellan Skarsgaard, El Hadj Malik Sow, Lamine Thiam, Frank T. Wells, Sherly Accosta Williams

Director: Steven Spielberg

Summary: The story of the journey made by a group of African slaves who take control of their slave ship in an attempt to travel back home. But the ship is retaken and they are sent to America where they stand trial for murder. The fight is now for a man's basic right to freedom...

Based on actual events in 1838, AMISTAD is the story of captured African slaves who took over their transport ship in a bloody revolt with the hopes of returning back to their homeland. After the slaves are caught and imprisoned, their leader, Cinque (Djimon Hounsou), unable to understand the language or court system of America, tries to communicate his desire to return home to his defense lawyer, Roger Baldwin (Matthew McConaughey), and former slave Theodore Joadson (Morgan Freeman). The men plead for help with their groundbreaking court case from former president John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins). Steven Spielberg directed this moving film, using as a reference the book by William A. Owens, BLACK MUTINY: THE REVOLT ON THE SCHOONER AMISTAD. The Africans in the movie speak Mende, with subtitles added. West African actor Djimon Hounsou had to learn to speak the language for his role--and was nominated for a Golden Globe. Spielberg shot the film at the State House in Providence, Rhode Island, the seaport in Mystic, Connecticut, and other New England locations.

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Steven Spielberg's most simplistic, sanitised 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, Amistadis a traditional courtroom drama, centred 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, Amazon.com

Aspect Ratio:	16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Behind The Scenes Featurette, Theatrical Trailer
Subtitles:	Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, German, Norwegian, Swedish
Year:	1997
Release Date:	June 6, 2005
Runtime:	148 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	490 981 2
Label:	Dream Works
Keywords:	General, Wide, Screen, Drama, Period, Amistad
Genre:	Drama