South versus South
“Free State of Jones,” a new Civil War drama, turns out to be a false step in the renaissance of the career of actor Matthew McConaughey.
Wildly overambitious and too long, the film never seems to gel and tie plot elements together, enabling it to rise to worthy heights and move an audience.
The film is directed and written by Gary Ross (“Seabiscuit”) and tells the true story of Newton Knight, a Unionist from Jones County, Miss., who led a rebellion of poor Southerners and ex-slaves against the Confederate Army and took control of five counties.
Supposedly, the story was painstakingly researched by Ross and, even though it’s ostensibly true, it was still difficult to understand why the Confederate Army, in the last stages of a losing cause, would care to muster men and energies to stop a ragtag army of 500 insurgents. The movie never explains why satisfactorily.
It opens with McConaughey as an army medic who deserts after a nephew is killed and it dawns on him that poor Southerners are dying for a cause that rich plantation owners are profiting from but not contributing their lives to.
When he returns home, he finds Confederate troops ransacking the homes of his brethren in an attempt to survive the war. Retreating to a swamp with a band of ex-slaves, Knight builds a movement to fight back against the Confederacy that soon attracts more disenfranchised Mississippians. He also falls in love with a slave, which adds another plot line to the story.
Ross also complicates things with unnecessary flash forwards to 1949 when Knight’s descendant is on trial for relations with a white woman. As Knight’s great-grandson, the question is revolving on whether or not he is black.
The story finally tackles Reconstruction, with Knight doing battle with the KKK and new laws that enslave blacks. McConaughey gives it his best try, but that’s just not good enough in this lifeless film.