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FREE STATE OF JONES
Directed by Gary Ross, with Matthew McConaughey and Keri Russell.
REVIEW: Todd McCarthy
A COMPELLING and little-known story of the Civil War period is studiously reduced to a dry and cautious history lesson in Free State of Jones. As if afraid to offend anyone or put a wrong foot in an era of racial hypersensitivity, writer-director Gary Ross tiptoes as if through a minefield in relating the fascinating tale of Newton Knight, a Mississippi farmer who had the temerity to lead a rebellion against the Confederacy from the inside with the help of a growing number of renegade slaves.
Returning to action four years after making the first Hunger Games instalment, Ross opens well with sobering scenes of Civil War carnage, as Confederate troops are systematically mowed down while being marched directly into Union lines of fire. Ross underlines the butchery with dialogue footnotes about Dixie’s class divide, as the poor do the fighting on behalf of rich landowners, who are exempt from military service if they own at least 20 slaves.
There could scarcely be a more sympathetic member of the Confederacy than Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey), a medic who’s both anti-secession and anti-slavery; he’s a reb by geographic happenstance alone. The quick death of a youngster he’s taken under his wing is the last straw for the aging farmboy, who deserts and, back home, tries to protect his wife Serena (Keri Russell) from the illegal confiscation of most of their possessions; she soon sees no choice but to flee. More provocations send Newt fleeing to an impenetrable swamp where he begins his career as a maverick marauder against his increasingly beleaguered Southern brethren.
In its sober and considered way, the film is absorbing at first, even for those with more than a passing knowledge of the war. Americans fighting Americans delivers a sharp sting, and Ross succeeds in establishing a thoughtful, non-sensationalistic tone as he lays the foundations for Newt’s unintended career as a leader of disenfranchised men.
Twenty-five minutes in, the focus shifts to a courthouse scene in the late 1940s, in which a Caucasian-looking man is seemingly being accused of being part-black and, therefore, vulnerable to charges of miscegenation.
Newt builds a belief in his hitherto downcast new allies that they can strike back against their tormentors. The first order of business is getting a dreadful iron necklace with upward-pointing spears removed from Moses (Mahershala Ali), the clear leader among the “collective”. The second is for Newt to teach them all how to shoot.
Ross is more attentive to what is historically known of Newt Knight and his times than to the imperatives of good drama; the veteran screenwriter has neglected to write any interesting or emotional scenes between Newt and Rachel. The Ku Klux Klan is born, plantations are restored to their former owners, apprenticeship becomes a euphemism for slavery, voting rights for blacks are squelched and “emancipation” is a term that must be enclosed within qualifying quotation marks. As the characters recede, the final stretch becomes a checklist of setbacks for racial fairness and equality.
Well before it’s over, then, Free State of Jones has devolved from an engaging historical drama into a compendium of regressive racial developments. Despite endowing Newt with a right-amiable manner and an easy way with speechifying, McConaughey doesn’t get the opportunity to create a fully dimensional man. – Reuters/ Hollywood Reporter