Customer Reviews

Solomon Northup's Odyssey: "Twelve Years a Slave"

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read the reviews for this movie before I purchased it and I didn't get it. I thought this movie was excellent. The acting was pretty good. I collect slavery movies (although we really should have many more than we do) and I am glad to add this story to my collection. The last scene in my opinion is the best, when Simon is able to leave the plantation and he feels torn. It brought tears to my eyes. This is a must see movie, based on fact.

I would recommend buying this movie. Very educational and it delves into an issue that is not usually taught in schools regarding slaves who were free, but forced into slavery through trickery. Collect this one! It's worth it.

Very Good Film. I enjoyed every mintue of the Film. Sorry it ended so soon.

I watch Solomon Northup's Odyssey: "Twelve Years a Slave" with my 8th grade students as part of our unit on antebellum Louisiana. I like to use this because it is based on a true story and I have a copy of the book in my classroom that I allow the students to look through if they wish. The movie does a good job of addressing the issues of slavery without getting so in depth that I can't show it to students. I used to have it on video, but DVD makes it so easy to keep track of each class and which "chapter" they stopped on, so they can continue the next day.

This movie production of a book I read is a winner in many ways. It takes you from freedom, to a slave pen, to a plantation where you are another man's property, bought and paid for to do the bidding of your new master.

The one fault in the movie could be the acting itself, which comes across as a bit stiff at times. But the true story and its subject of American slavery are so captivating that the players on screen become convincing symbols of the many injustices suffered by Blacks during the era. The suffering voices of the enslaved definitely come through.

Every black character carries the scars of slavery in one way or another. The one black man in their midst who'd been intimate with freedom before being tricked and kidnapped into slavery, Solomon Northrup, becomes well acquainted with those scars and ongoing fears. How does a proud and dignified man survive 12 years in a cruel, undignified, humiliating environment? Allow yourself to be transported to America's 1840's deep south as an enslaved northerner with an education and middleclass refinement. It is this movie and Solomon Northrup that brings you closest to being able to say, I've walked in the shoes of a slave.

I've have studied the institute of Slavery in America from 1619 to the Civil War.
The film is poorly acted, you never get a sense of caring for any of the characters.
The film seems to be afraid to offend the viewing audience. "Roots" was an important movie for that generation (70's/80/s).
If you saw Roots today, it would just be an average movie. Solomon Northup's Odyssey doesn't even come close to Roots. This movie doesn't teach us anything of the true lives of people back then. This DVD should be in the $2 bargain bid at Walmart.