a5c7b9f00b Set during the Civil War, Free State of Jones tells the story of defiant Southern farmer, Newt Knight, and his extraordinary armed rebellion against the Confederacy. Banding together with other small farmers and local slaves, Knight launched an uprising that led Jones County, Mississippi to secede from the Confederacy, creating a Free State of Jones. Knight continued his struggle into Reconstruction, distinguishing hima compelling, if controversial, figure of defiance long beyond the War. A disillusioned Confederate army deserter returns to Mississippi and leads a militia of fellow deserters and women in an uprising against the corrupt local Confederate government. So the movie is notbadI thought it would be. It was getting a lot of bad publicity from critics and viewers, but what I saw was not really half bad. I felt like I learned something (or at least it built the foundation for me to seek more info)<br/><br/>Matthew McConaughey plays a soldier for the confederate army who deserts his post when he gets fed up of him and his kin folk dying so that rich people can get richer off of having slaves pick their Cotton for them. On the run, he was no better than the slaves (or at least that&#39;s what the movie wants you to think), but back in those days only a white man could have gotten away with declaring the land that he was hiding on his own country where all children of Godthe movie puts it are free to work hard on the land they tend to and have no other man tell them what to do with it. <br/><br/>In and interesting side story mixed in this one, Matthew McConaughey&#39;s character, Newton Knight has a decedent who is on trail because in the 1950s, Mississippi was so racist that they would not allow a white man with a drop of black blood in him marry a white women and the prosecutor had evidence that Knight may have fathered a baby with a black woman giving this man that blood.<br/><br/>McConaughey is real good at playing a simple man who firmly stands by his high moral code, and no matter what the story content is this movie is all about McConaughey being the center of attention.<br/><br/>It was a cool story about what America was like after slavery ended. Though not completely historically accurate, though I should point out thatweirdit seems in 2016, the Republicans were the good guys (they did free the slaves, after all) and the Democrat were all about the Triple K. It&#39;s cool yet messed up how things have not changed so much since 1862 and the movie comes out at a time when we need to reflect upon this.<br/><br/>Too bad the movie itself is not all that good to be reflecting on. It&#39;s too long and not constructed well, using historical narrations that make the movie look unfinished. It was a lot of good info over shadowed by the leading man who needed to be focus on far too much. <br/><br/>It&#39;s not bad but I would wait to catch it on Netflix or something. Unfortunately, if not too surprisingly, the latter overshadowed this film in terms of audience attendance. There were only three or four other people in the theater with me, the Saturday afternoon of its Opening Weekend!<br/><br/>But, in terms of staying glued to my seat from literal beginning to end? It proved juststrongID:R. <br/><br/>Matthew McConnaughey was perfectly castNewton Knight. If only because, with that beard, he was the proverbial dead ringer when compared to actual newspaper photographs of the real Knight from that time! <br/><br/>Keri Russell and relative newcomer Ms. Gugu were equally convincingthe two Mrs. Knights. But, the most powerful performance had to be that of Mahershala(habaz) Alithe ill-fated Moses Washington. If he doesn&#39;t at least get nominated for Best Supporting Actor, next spring, I&#39;m not tuning in the 2017 Oscars at all! Ross wants to shake up the format—notably with a few scenes set 85 years after the war—but like so many directors who have tackled historical social issues before him, he confuses noble, cornball sermonizing for art.
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