Wick's Review

Summary - Very Good 3.5

Why don’t slaves revolt? In the South two centuries ago, in the Warsaw ghetto during the Holocaust or even in Asia now? The Birth of a Nation helps answer that complicated question. Unfortunately the movie itself is complicated. Its creators apparently raped a woman while college students in 1999, with their victim ultimately committing suicide just four years ago. Then they put a fictional rape at the center of their movie.

That’s a lot to process, but didn’t stop me from seeing the movie because it tells an important story from America’s sad and savage slaveholding era. While not up with 12 Years a Slave or even Free State of Jones among the recent run of high quality movies about that era, Nate Parker’s passion project is the big budget treatment that Nat Turner’s slave rebellion deserves, notwithstanding Parker’s history and his film’s flaws.

Nat Turner revolted after witnessing unfathomable cruelty beyond even his own experience as a slave, at least as the movie would have it. Glimpses of such hideous practices teach important lessons still today.

Yes, The Birth of a Nation is marred by failed artsy touches, fictional sensationalism and its creators’ criminal history. But it is a very good movie: engaging, affecting and fascinating. In short, it’s more than worth seeing for history buffs in general and those interested in African-American slavery in particular.

Acting - Great 4.0

Nate Parker, a better actor than director, stars in his own movie as Nat Turner. It’s an engaging, occasionally tender and ultimately fierce performance. This feels like destiny fulfilled, as he jumped offscreen in The Great Debaters with Denzel Washington and flashed leading-man potential in Red Tails.

Strong Supporting Cast

• Nat Turner’s family
  • Aja Naomi King jumps offscreen as his wife, first seen in a traumatized and degraded state, but soon a lovely and self-possessed woman. This actress has a bright future.
  • Aunjanue Ellis and Esther Scott are quite affecting as Nat Turner’s mother and grandmother, respectively.
  • Dwight Henry is tragically strong as Nat Turner’s father.
  • Tony Espinosa is tender as young Nat.
• Other Slaves
  • Colman Domingo is stout as a fellow slave
  • Roger Guenveur Smith is regal as the chief house slave.
  • Gabrielle Union’s role is less important than her offscreen defense of the movie after Nate Parker’s rape history came to light.
• Overlords
  • Armie Hammer plays his alcoholic owner: Samuel Turner
  • Mark Boone Junior is perfectly gluttonous as a prominent preacher.
  • Penelope Ann Miller is almost touching as a slave owner’s daughter who tries to do good, at least as far as she can see it
  • Jackie Earle Haley is evil incarnate as a slave hunter. Haley is one of the best character actors working today, especially when called upon to play mean, venal or perverted.

Film - Good 3.0

Nate Parker deserves considerable credit for conceiving of this film and bringing it to fruition. Ironically, he apparently received guidance and/or encouragement from another seriously flawed actor/filmmaker, Mel Gibson, to whom he gives Special Thanks in the credits.

Parker’s well-crafted period piece enlightens the mind and rends the heart in equal measure. Pity then that he included a brutal gang-rape that never happened. Perhaps Mel suggested that he up the ante on savagery to make sure the audience would have enough blood lust for the third reel. He should have trusted us more.

He also employs some dream/supernatural sequences that don’t work, e.g., a bleeding ear of corn.

Edge - Sordid 3.2

Horrific violence splatters across the screen on multiple occasions. To its credit, Nate Parker’s film spends considerable time observing the aftereffects of such violence.

Reality - Glib 1.5

Aside from the widely noted fact that a gang-rape at the center of Birth of a Nation never occurred, there are other reality liberties. For instance, an African-American slave refers to “black people”, striking a false note as that modern term didn’t come into use until well over a century later.

Notable reports about Birth of a Nation:

• 60 Minutes interviews descendants about the 1831 slave revolt
• The Daily Beast – Inside the Nate Parker rape case

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