Newton Knight deserts from the Confederate forces and becomes a figurehead among a group of escaped slaves and fellow deserters. After guerrilla warfare with the local forces who are tasked with raising resources from local farmers (often leaving them with nothing), Newt's people declare Jones County to be independent of the Confederacy. And they have even more work to do once the Civil War ends.
Matthew McConaughey in a horrible beard plays Newt, an extraordinary ordinary man trying to do his best to balance conscience, family, right and wrong, in a miserable war of attrition and injustice. This true (albeit dramatised) story is fairly low-profile - I have never seen mention of any of the events in it before, but this dramatisation does well to convey why the Civil War started, the deeply held prejudices which prevailed throughout and which remained in place long beyond its end (the main narrative is interspersed with flash-forwards to a court case involving one of Newt's descendants in the fairly recent past, which makes the point that winning a war doesn't change minds).
There are some action sequences - the opening battle scene is gripping and visceral - but this is mainly a thoughtful and leisurely recounting of one man's part in the fate of a small area of the USA during and after the Civil War: as such, there is more by way of discussion than action. Some might say it is slow and overlong: I had no problem.
Having said that, the location work conveys a strong impression of the swampy, difficult farmland, and small townships where these events took place, and all the cast does well.
And I, personally, walked away with my sense of injustice reinforced. We still haven't got it right, but at least we are making progress.
Matthew McConaughey in a horrible beard plays Newt, an extraordinary ordinary man trying to do his best to balance conscience, family, right and wrong, in a miserable war of attrition and injustice. This true (albeit dramatised) story is fairly low-profile - I have never seen mention of any of the events in it before, but this dramatisation does well to convey why the Civil War started, the deeply held prejudices which prevailed throughout and which remained in place long beyond its end (the main narrative is interspersed with flash-forwards to a court case involving one of Newt's descendants in the fairly recent past, which makes the point that winning a war doesn't change minds).
There are some action sequences - the opening battle scene is gripping and visceral - but this is mainly a thoughtful and leisurely recounting of one man's part in the fate of a small area of the USA during and after the Civil War: as such, there is more by way of discussion than action. Some might say it is slow and overlong: I had no problem.
Having said that, the location work conveys a strong impression of the swampy, difficult farmland, and small townships where these events took place, and all the cast does well.
And I, personally, walked away with my sense of injustice reinforced. We still haven't got it right, but at least we are making progress.