User Reviews

I think, to many southerners like myself, the story told in the movie Free State of Jones was part of a hidden history. Growing up this stuff was omitted from our collective education. It's not hard to see why. It's a very ugly and insidious part of history. It's our nations most terrible war from which healing has been extremely longstanding…even still 150 years on. However, to achieve a freedom from future tyranny I'd say the movie's timetable works. The time is right because what lingers needs the transparency that allows a fuller healing through the art of the story told. To never repeat the mistakes of the past we must learn, and that involves honesty.

So, here we have a very different Civil War drama based on actual events. Instead of centering on great battles it explores the human drama that corrupt elements rather than any particular battle caused. While it's certainly true crimes were committed on both sides, the desperate elements operating within the Confederate movement were particularly ominous. Illegal conscription and seizing of property from those without a voice ran rampant. This is a climate which created many a defection, and here a subversive movement.

Newton Knight was turned in an instant and it galvanized what would follow. Knight's defection from the Confederate Army results in his spearheading a group of slaves and small farmers to secede from the Confederacy and form a "Free State of Jones" This is a powerful story which cost many lives ultimately prevailing when the Union won the war. Though it prevailed, the freedom it was promised was slow to come. Afterwards, even with new constitutional rights granted, norms were steeped in old traditions. A messy time for sure which was purposely written out of the collective history. I think this movie serves the basics well without getting mired in diatribes of moralities. Even with the story's slow pace the viewer gets a powerful history lesson. The characters ring true and their life and death struggle is eloquently unraveled.

Not since Matthew McConaughey came on the scene in the movie "A Time To Kill" has he had a more important role. I think it's one of his, if not his best, performance. He's not so much acting as inhabiting a man whose voice was silenced long ago. He carries that voice to a whole new generation and it speaks volumes. Perhaps the movie is a bit slow paced and long, even using the clunky device of segueing to a much later date's court case at odd times. But, these are small criticisms that do not take away from a forgotten history. The segueing part even reinforces how so much was to take so long to truly change. Overall, a masterfully constructed important story with great period feel and realism. I recommend it for all as it does entertain and enlighten. Yes, this many years on there's still a powerful lesson we should never forget and continue to seek that all important truest expression of freedom so many have given so much for.

The film opens with marching men going into battle and the sense of the unknown is captured well here. Thereafter, a bloody battle ensues, with grim scenes of the charnel house of a hospital, that with later scenes, earn this film its UK rating of 15.

In the middle of these opening scenes is the star of the film Matthew McConaughey. He plays the real-life character of Newton Knight, a Confederate soldier from Jones County in Mississippi, at the time of the American Civil War. After good performances in 'Mud' (2012), and Interstellar (2014), here Mr McConaughey gives a convincing performance playing the real-life character who's life-story is laid out in this film.

A google search will show that writers Leonard Hartman and Gary Ross, have fictionalized real-life events to some extent, whilst also retaining their truthful core.

It is the fictionalized part of the first battle that seems badly done. The logic of the plan that was acted upon by the characters, seems too flawed to be believable. Perhaps the only flaw in this excellent film.

It was the military side of things that was most fascinating about this film, and indeed was the subject matter of much of this film. The carnage of the first battle was symptomatic of much of the American Civil War, where the northern Unionists used their greater resources to grind down the forces of the southern secessionists. This destructive and wasteful style of fighting has been seen since of course. Marshall Zhukov of the USSR used the Red Army in a similar way as he advanced on the Eastern front during WWII. More recently, the 1990 Gulf War was a similar example of the use of overwhelming force, as was the 2003 Iraq War an example of underwhelming power. The American Civil War foreshadowed that terrible carnage of the trench-warfare of WWI. Nowadays, unnecessary attrition has rightly been replaced, mostly, by selective precision. The Syrian Civil War, now in its 5th year, is however, a clear exception to this general rule.

Most of the fighting in this film though, is of a much lower level of intensity. We see fighting and guerrilla warfare, understandable to any student of Sun Tzu, Mao Tse-tung, or Che Guevara. Matthew McConaughey creates and leads his small band of irregulars against the regular army, led by Thomas Francis Murphy playing a man trying to do his duty, and Bill Tangradi playing a man revelling in his power. Both parts played well. Before all that though, is the spark that sets things off, in a tense and well-played scene with Kerry Cahill, Stella Allen, Camden Flowers and Carsen Flowers. Sun Tzu would have been proud of that scene, and Director Gary Ross should be proud of it too, as well as the rest of the film.

However, the film is not just about war. It is war that changes facts on the ground, but it is politics that try to make sense of what people are fighting for, and what they are trying to create. Earlier in the film, the side-kicks, played well by Christopher Berry and Sean Bridgers, have been in conversations about the moralities of war. Mr McConaughey's character also, as seen in the trailers, expounds on the reasons for war, and war aims, in a speech that covers philosophical ideas stretching from the communism of Karl Marx to that of the property rights of John Locke.

As a decent war film, this movie could have ended with the war and been fine for that, however, the real-life story continued, and so too, rightly, does this film.

Slavery, was at the very centre of the war-aims. 'Lincoln' (2012), showed the parliamentary struggle for abolition. Here, in 'Free State Of Jones' we see the actual reality of slavery, both before abolition, and after. The two other stars of the film both play slaves. Englishwoman Gugu Mbatha-Raw gives a convincing performance as does Mahersala Ali.

Within a couple of days of seeing this film, this reviewer also saw a BBC documentary called Scotland and the Klan. It told the story of the Scots hill-billies who settled across the USA, and how a minstrel group called the Ku Klux Klan quickly grew and morphed into a terrorist organization. Acting like a guerrilla army they used random and targeted acts to terrorize after the American Civil War.

'Free State Of Jones' shows well the post-war conflict with the KKK. Like 'Lincoln', this film shows a world of political parties very different to present day. Then, white supremacists were loyal to the Democrats, blacks to the abolitionist Republicans. 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance' (1962) was all about the law and democracy and voting. Similar themes are explored in strong scenes that are both well acted and well filmed. Mahershala Ali, so good from the start of the film, here is the central character. However, Matthew McConaughey also has a role to play, and Christopher Berry's and Sean Bridges's small side-kick characters, continue to authentically develop post-war as they did during the war.

Gary Ross, the director and writer, has previously penned 'Big' (1988) and 'Dave' (1993), both of which were comedies that also delivered serious thoughts too. In this serious work, with location-shooting that included Jones County, he has given us a very impressive piece of work. Two good touches, that demonstrated attention to detail were; the clearly different bits of wood authentically used for a funeral coffin to give an authentic realism, and the authentically-looking slight greying of Mr McConaughey's hair in later scenes.

Free State Of Jones is a fine piece of work, of which all involved should be proud. Essentially a war story, it will be of interest to those interested in war studies, but the inclusion of some politics and a spot of philosophy too, means that it will appeal to all interested in history wanting to see a serious film. 9/10.

There are times when shameful dark corners of American History are exposed for what they are. In this era of the remake, at least this one is the first time around. Ironically, the trailers at this one run for the remake of The Birth Of A Nation. That is because the remake is not even using the novel of Dixon's and is a feature for Armie Hammer of fully written dramatic fiction. The silent The Birth of a Nation is based on Thomas Dixon Jr. novel "The Klansman" which is a Romantic work of fiction made into a classic by D W Griffith.

I went out and looked at this Smithsonian reference for some information about this story Newton Knight. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-free-state-jones- 180958111/?no-ist

Unlike other films based upon real characters during the Civil War like John Wayne's Dark Command (1940), this film has a very realistic dramatic feel to it. The film has a large cast but other than Newton Knight, this is a cast of little recognition, yet. Considering this film, some of the folks here could become stars later on.

The story is really a drama with few punches pulled about how terrible it was to be in Jones County, Ms during the Civil War. The shame of the real crisis that was the United States and the Confederate States comes through strongly. There was very much wrong with the country and Newton Knight was a leader who lived through it. He becomes that leader not by choice, but by circumstances.

He takes refuge in a swamp to get away from evil Confederate soldiers during the war and then after it, he has more trouble wih the Klu Klux Klan, and the Union which won the war. He is portrayed here as a very not typical Southerner, who deserts the Confederate Army and is shocked at what he finds back home when he gets there.

The reason I feel this straight drama is not for the critics is that it is told a bit long and most of them are looking for more action. This movie is more drama and story telling and it is done right. I actually feel this movie is better being long as it gets to tell the story better.

Is it totally true? At times the script takes some leaps away from fact, but the facts here are not all clear in the history books. That is the way true history happens and what is more important is the events that happened here and the shame that is portrayed with an uneasy feeling of fact. If you like drama and perhaps dog meat, it is very much worth checking out.

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.

It's a shame that this little-known story from the American Civil War couldn't have been presented in a better film. While it is far from a horrible film, it is a disappointing one for certain. A lot of the weakness boils down to the screenplay for the film. While the film covers over fourteen years of time, it does so in a way that is downright dull at times. The filmmakers chose to devote most of the film's screen time in the first hour to the buildup to the events leading to the creation of the Free State. While this does give us time to get to know Knight, the people he would come to lead, and how the situation affects them, it spends a little too long getting there. It is just a series of meetings between people, discussions and speeches about how things are, and what should be done about it, and long glances and walks from place to place.

When events do finally move toward driving Confederates out of Jones County, it is done, and over very quickly. What should've been the main focus of the film takes up just twenty or so minutes of screen time. The last forty minutes or so of the film deals with Reconstruction, and how Knight attempted to fight the return of slavery in, albeit by another name, and getting men of color the right to vote. While this part of the story is compelling, it feels by this point that the filmmakers are just wanting to tell as much of Knight's story as possible in one film. This ends up hurting the film, as it starts to feel like too much on the plate.

What's more, the filmmakers also chose to include a subplot with one of Knight's descendants in 1947. The subplot tells of Davis Knight and his getting married. However, because Davis was the great-great-grandson of Knight and his wife Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), a black woman, that made him 1/8 black, and therefore, a black person not eligible to marry a white in Mississippi at that time. He was sent to prison for this "crime," but the conviction was eventually overturned. While it is also a compelling and powerful story, it deserves to be told in its own film, and not in a film whose focus was on a completely different story altogether.

And therein lies the central problem of Free State of Jones. At the end of the day, the film attempts to tell three different stories in its 139-minute running time, making it a film with very little focus. For those who might not be familiar with the era and its people, this might make the film difficult to follow. And despite these different stories, the story drags from time to time. It definitely feels more like something that should've been a History Channel docudrama, with historian interview thrown in (Replacing the film's use of text titles to explain events).

However, despite these issues, there is much to admire in the film. It's beautifully-shot, and has a very powerful cast. McConaughey does a fantastic job as Newton Knight, bringing this character to life with a realism that does make you admire what he stood for. Mbatha-Raw gives a very effective performance as Rachel, the slave and healer who eventually becomes Knight's wife, and joins him in his quest. Mahershala Ali, as the runaway slave Moses, gives the film's most subtle performance, understating his character's desire to be treated as a man despite the color of his skin.

In probably the film's most powerful moment, when Knight asks Moses why he wants to be free, he gives the film's greatest sentiment: "Because you cannot own a child of God." It is this scene, and the interaction between the characters, that really makes Free State of Jones come alive. We understand these people, and care for them. So, when brutal acts come to them, we are saddened and angered by their loss.

The few action scenes are well-shot and edited, giving the film a visceral impact. The recreation of the fighting around Corinth, is well-staged, exciting, and brutal. There are a few historical quibbles (Formations seem to not be consistent between shots, in addition to uniforms and equipment looking a little inaccurate), but it conveys the brutality of war, and its impact on the individual.

However, despite all the good it has going for it, this is not a film I can fully recommend. While it does have great performances, and some great technical merits in how it's shot, Free State of Jones squanders its opportunity to tell a powerful story by delivering a film that lacks a focused narrative, and is boring at times. Only those with a real interest in the period, and learning more about this story, will find something to appreciate. But even for history buffs like myself, it leaves a lot to be desired. In the end, Free State of Jones is neither a good experience, nor a bad one. It's just a middling experience.

I liked this movie and thought it should have had a wider release. Its run was so short and there were so few showings that Tom and I had to go all the way across town to see it, and it's apparently disappearing from Las Vegas next week. However, it would have been a better movie if it had been shorter. It included a bunch of stuff that was not necessary to the story.

If the script had been edited down to just the stuff that actually relates to the title, the Free State of Jones and how it come to be, it would have been an excellent example of the war movie genre. The stirring victory could have been the third-to-last scene, with a couple of scenes of how things came out later -- the whole section about voter registration and voting could easily have been edited together into one scene, and the stuff about how agriculture was handled after the war could have been cut together into another one scene, and then the movie could have ended on another high note with Knight rescuing the child. The stuff about Knight's descendants could have been thrown onto the screen in text on the end, like many historical movies do. There were already several scenes that began with lots of text on the screen, especially towards the end, so that would have fit nicely with the rest of the movie. The first time they cut away from the middle of exciting fight scenes and character motivation scenes to show a different group of characters in a different century sitting around talking about ancestors and laws I literally turned to Tom and whispered, "What the hell?" We shrugged at each other. If I had been watching this on TV instead of in the theater I would have checked to make sure I was still on the same channel. Subsequent cuts away from the real story to this descendant stuff were not as confusing, but were still totally unnecessary to the story and interrupted it weirdly. The movie was way too long, including stuff that should have been edited out in the script stage, not just with the intercuts to the future but also with the stuff that occurred after there was no more Free State of Jones, after the end of the war. This was 2 different movies with the same characters glued back to back, plus a third of another different one with different characters chopped into it. Despite all that, the main story was so good I STILL think it's a great war movie.

Before I went to see this, I was a little bit concerned it might be another "white savior" movie like Dances With Wolves and its science fiction reboot Avatar, but it isn't. The main character isn't motivated by being some other culture's new Messiah, he's just a man fighting for his own reasons and his own family.

This movie was a fascinating look at a part of our history that I knew nothing about. Even Tom had not known about the Free State of Jones before, and he's been something of a Civil War buff. Why did we not know about this before? Why is this not taught in school? We knew about Texas being its own country once, so why not this? Everyone who cares about American history should see this. Since this is the end of its theatrical run, I guess most people will have to see it in a recorded medium or on TV.

Fun inside joke to pull: from now on the actor is just named McConna because the gh is silent.

This movie wasn't bad. A little too fast paced. The movie didn't spend enough time Showing the "free state of jones" period/ town.

The part with the wife leaving and coming back didn't make sense.

I like the fact that its a part of untold history.

The movie could have been better but also a lot worse. I enjoyed it if you like to learn about history.

The black history in the film is significant.

I was surprised about this untold history like it was a secret. For example, the fact that slavery didn't end right away and the confederates tried to make laws to keep slavery going as "apprentices"

This was a film that had the potential to be an epic. It falls far short of that label, but it is still at least a "good" film -- well above average (hence my "7" rating) -- and worth watching.

The opening scenes capture in vivid detail the horrors of mid-19th warfare, where lines of troops got ripped to shreds walking in long rows directly into the enemy's musket and cannon fire. The horror continued for the wounded, who were subjected to the barbaric battlefield hospitals and surgical techniques of the day, which included no anesthesia and filthy conditions. All of this is captured vividly and in great detail in the opening scenes of the film.

What I really appreciated about The Free State of Jones is that it brings to light a piece of American history that I think few Americans have ever heard about, especially if you are not from a Deep South state. The story of Newt Knight's "secession within a secession" movement was a real eye-opener. In some ways, the Confederacy itself was responsible for generating much of this secessionist sentiment, first by the passage of the so-called "Twenty Negros Law," which clearly favored the large plantation owners over the small, subsistence farmers -- many of whom owned no slaves at all -- and then by the continued taking of the small farmers' food and supplies by the Southern army troops. You would expect the Northern troops to confiscate everything from the Southern farmers; you would not expect the same treatment from your own soldiers who were ostensibly fighting on your behalf. Legally, the Southern troops and the tax agents were authorized to take 10% of food and other property in lieu of payment of taxes. In reality, there was no oversight and the soldiers took whatever they wanted, often leaving the small farm families destitute and facing starvation.

The film inserts flash forwards to a great-grandson of Newt Knight being tried for an interracial marriage in 1960's Mississippi. These scenes were awkwardly inserted and disrupted the flow of the 1860's - 1870's part of the story.

This is a good, but not great movie, but worth watching, especially if you are a devotee of American history. It prompted me to do more research on this little- known part of American Civil War history.