beorhhouse There have been made quite a number of films about the Atlantic slave trade, but this is the best of the best of them. Others like the newer Birth of a Nation, Armitage, 12 Years a Slave, The Free State of Jones, and The Retrieval cut a close second, however. This film really shows the hypocrisy of the so-called Christians of the late 18th century and early into the Regency period of the 19th century. There are even so-called Christians in this film who believe it is right to be part of bloody revolt in order to overthrow, making them no more actual followers of Christ than the American rebels who rose up against their British king and his patriots or the alleged Christians of France who beheaded the royalty of their country in favor of a far worse despot in the form of Napoleon. But the Christianity of Parliament member William Wilberforce shines as the most christlike, and ultimately as the most effective force that ended the British slave trade. His opponents were right. The French would take over, and the American South, fawning after all things French, soon followed suite--though never nearly as brutal as the French slaveholders simply because they sought to save the lives of their slaves, being expensive property, while the French routinely killed theirs for the slightest infraction of a rule--then simply bought a replacement.

katiebee09 I watched the trailer for this film and was blown away by the powerful emotion and story conveyed. The problem when I watched the actual film was the lack of momentum. Instead of being swept up in a moving drama that had me glued to my seat as I expected, the flow of the story was continually interrupted by jumping back and forth between present and past. I didn't care for the way the story was laid out. There were brilliant moments of acting, there were moving moments of passion and conviction, but overall I was unimpressed. The little detours of personal life and politics detracted from the momentum rather than helping to build it.I thought it was a good film. It just wasn't the great film I'd anticipated. Definitely some fantastic actors to enjoy; Benedict Cumberbatch and Ioan Gruffudd had great chemistry and offer wonderful performances.

Red Rat There's an art to cooking fresh tuna, it should be very lightly seasoned and seared, too much seasoning you ruin the taste, too long on the grill you kill the fish. Making a film about the abolition of slavery is very much the same, you need a light hand or from the outset it can very easily fall into a pit of despair and political correctness. Amazing Grace then, seems to be seasoned just right as rather than focus on the atrocities of the slave trade it concentrates on the battle the abolition movement faced in parliament.Set in the late 17 hundreds, this is the true story of the abolition movement. It chronicles the life of William Wilberforce, a dashing young politician from the North of England driven by a spiritual awakening influenced by John Newton ( writer of the hymn Amazing Grace) and a sense of moral duty to bring forth the end of slavery.It's a fairly historically accurate film, the sets are truly amazing, especially the historic dock scenes, and costume design is wonderful. There are however a number of points where I felt the film fell short. It's true William Wilberforce fought tirelessly to get his anti slavery bill passed and it did almost kill him, Wilberforce has always been the name most rewarded with ending slavery, but I do not feel enough was made of the role played by Thomas Clarkson. To truly understand Clarkson's efforts one first needs to view this age through different eyes, it's hard for us living in a world of Google, iPhones and 24 hour CNN to imagine a world without radio or television, a world where 90% of the population could neither read nor write or a place where newspapers and books were in short supply. This is indeed how the world was at the end of the 18th century. So whilst we can sit back in judgment of those we perceive allowed slavery to continue, the reality is that very few people even knew about it. The slavers, plantation owners and sugar barons controlled the media, putting out propaganda, suggesting that slavery conditions were indeed better than those many people in Britain faced themselves. There were of course those who knew otherwise but they were an elite few and for the most part kept quiet whilst making money. It took Thomas Clarkson's efforts of traveling the length and breadth of England non stop, to every town and village with his exhibition showing the people of Britain the real conditions of slave ships and the cruelty of life on plantations. To understand the politics of the time we must think about the current Iraq war and the special interests. Just as today a majority of the people are against the Iraq war, troops are there because of special interests, the government contractors and military suppliers making money from war, the oil industry controlling the media and despite us living in a world of information technology there is still a massive amount of people who have no idea what's really going on. The slave trade was no different, it was allowed to continue by parliament because the traders, tobacco growers and sugar barons were able to bribe parliament for such a long time, so whilst the guilt falls on that small group of profiteers involved we can at least forgive the people as they did not have TV or google and knew nothing of it. So it really was Clarkson's efforts down in the street in the trenches informing the people as much as it was Wilberforce's efforts in the chambers that brought about the abolition for once there was public change and public opinion against slavery Parliament had to follow. I did not feel this film went far enough to convey that, Clarkson it seemed was just an auxiliary character.The second point, whilst seemingly trivial, is that some mention was made of the American war of Independence, it was however omitted that a major part of the American intent to separate from Britain was due to the fear in the colony of abolition. The American's themselves wanted to break free of debt to the crown by creating their own monetary system and take control of the cotton, tobacco and hemp industries which depended on slavery to be economical. Franklin, a spy for the French and Coloialists attended a masonic lodge in Scotland was very aware that the abolition movement was a growing force. To secure an economical future America needed to be independent from the crown before Britain abolished slavery or their economy would be destroyed. Other than one line in the film where William Pitt mentions the letters between Wilberforce and Jefferson there was no real mention of this, perhaps then not wanting to offend American viewers the writer Steven Knight chose a 'politically inoffensive version' of events rewriting history as Hollywood often does, rather than an historically accurate one.Those annoyances aside it is a pretty good film. It's less heavy handed than Amistad for example and there's some generally good acting. Nothing outstanding but I did like Michael Gambon as Lord Fox and Toby Jones as the Duke of Clarence. Costume and make up is superb and it has its cinematographic touches. There were some deeply touching moments as you would expect from a film on this subject but the style of direction from Micael Apted deals mostly with the facts making this more palatable than say Schindler's List for example.8/10

wrs10 Looks like, according to others, that this film was made in the old Hollywood tradition of never letting the facts stand in the way of a good story. No matter, it captures the atmosphere of the struggle in spirit and if it spurs one to use Google to learn the details properly so much the better.The film fails to explain a few details, such as why his proposal was passed nearly unanimously in 1807, nearly passed 20 years earlier - but nothing much in between. Answer - war, or the immediate threat of war, with French resulting in the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805. The film did explain that any British withdrawal from the trade would just allow the French and others to fill the resulting vacuum. No gain there but after the French and Spanish fleets were destroyed n 1805 there was no chance of any vacuum being created. The potential costs of banning the trade dropped sharply.Again, the film was a bit vague about distinguishing between abolishing the trans-Atlantic trade in slaves and abolishing slavery itself in the West Indies. That took another generation and another revolution - the railways - to enable that.The struggle for Parliamentary Reform had been going on just as long. It had been opposed as being a risk too far - look at what happened during the French Revolution. However in 1830 a railway between Manchester and Liverpool was opened. A few months later a riot broke out near the line in Liverpool. Word was passed to an army barracks, also near the line, on the outskirts of Manchester. A train was commandeered, filled with troops and sent rapidly on its way to Liverpool. The troops delivered, riot cleared - all within 2 hours!!! A year earlier it would have taken 2 days!!! With the balance of power shifting so sharply in favour of the forces of order resistance to Parliamentary Reform weakened so much that it was finally achieved by 1832 - and the new Parliament finally voted for the abolition of slavery itself in 1833 (although it took a few years to be fully rolled out). Cause and effect.(Trivia: The Duke of Clarence depicted in the film had his mistress housed in the same road that Boris Karloff was born. Is that why so many cinematic liberties were taken with his character?)