Amazon.com: Amistad (Widescreen Edition): Morgan Freeman, Nigel Hawthorne, Anthony Hopkins, Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, David Paymer, Pete Postlethwaite, Stellan Skarsgård, Razaaq Adoti, Abu Bakaar Fofanah, Anna Paquin, Tomas Milian, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Derrick N. Ashong, Geno Silva, John Ortiz, Ralph Brown, Darren E. Burrows, Allan Rich, Paul Guilfoyle (II), Steven Spielberg: Video

Amistad (Widescreen Edition) (1997)

Starring: Morgan Freeman, Nigel Hawthorne Director: Steven Spielberg Rating

Glory DVD ~ Matthew Broderick

(353) $9.99

The Tuskegee Airmen DVD ~ Laurence Fishburne

(48) $5.49

Malcolm X DVD ~ Angela Bassett

(145) $9.99

Schindler's List (Widescreen Edition) DVD ~ Liam Neeson

(599) $14.99

Amazing Grace DVD ~ Ioan Gruffudd

(155) $21.99

› Explore similar items : Movies & TV (49)

Actors: Morgan Freeman, Nigel Hawthorne, Anthony Hopkins, Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey
Directors: Steven Spielberg
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Letterboxed, THX, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English, Spanish
Rating:
Number of tapes: 1
Studio: Dreamworks Video
VHS Release Date: November 10, 1998
Run Time: 155 minutes

Average Customer Review:

(143 customer reviews)

ASIN: 0783227256
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #47,403 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? (We'll ask you to sign in so we can get back to you)

Amazon.com essential video
Steven Spielberg's most simplistic, sanitized 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, Amistad is a traditional courtroom drama, centered 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

Glory DVD ~ Matthew Broderick

(353) $9.99