Emancipation
2022
**
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Cast: Will Smith, Ben Foster, Charmaine Bingwa, Steven Ogg, Mustafa Shakir, Jayson Warner Smith, Gilbert Owuor
Although President Lincoln has issued the Emancipation Proclamation to end slavery in January 1863, it's business as usual in Louisiana. A Haitian man named Peter and two other slaves flee a plantation and hope to navigate through the swamps to the Union Army in Baton Rouge. Antoine Fuqua's film offers an awkward and implausible mix of historical drama and action entertainment. The main character is loosely based on a former slave, whose scarred back was captured in a famous photograph. However, I doubt the real Peter wrestled any alligators on his way to freedom. No matter how deep Peter walks into the swamp, he always seems be just a few feet away from a path where the slave catchers wait on horseback. William N. Collage's script also has some structural issues. Just when I thought the story was over, there is another long and extremely violent Civil War section to sit through. Robert Richardson's washed-out visuals get boring pretty fast.
