Popular reviews

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  Review by Will Menaker ★★★★ 6

  Not going to lie, I don't think any movie makes me tear up as much this one. It wrings it out of me with it's big, cornball sentimentality and sweeping, swelling music, but I'll be damned if it isn't appropriate and I won't hear any slander of this movie from the baby-brained that it's some kind of simple "white savior" narrative.

  I watched this after 'The Battle of Algiers' because I'm interested in the idea that this movie is not just about free-men and former slaves who were willing to die for the cause of freedom, because what could be more noble? It's really about how they were willing to kill for it, and the revolutionary discipline required to do that. The price of freedom is death. Yours possibly, but ideally the other guy whose boot is on your neck.

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 18

  Even Roger Ebert knew this was racist, apparently. There's arguments that anti-white supremacist arguments should pander to white sensibilities, that white people listen better when we have it sugarcoated for us. Maybe this is true. Maybe I've only ever learned when being coddled, but it has never felt that way. Every epiphany I've had about my own privilege or about racism has felt painful. This film is not painful to watch. This film is not excoriating of whiteness. This film is pandering to it.

  Yeah, yeah, you're thinking, "but the film shows that Colonel whatsit is also a little bit racist by showing..." or "it depicts a realistic..." or whatever, but I don't care. It centers a white character in…

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★★ 1

  This is a fascinating work that of course probably couldn't live up to contemporary representational semiotics but for 1989 it's incredibly complicated and thorny without sacrificing simple melodrama. It's also packed with truly elaborate spectacle and tremendous performances. Good movie, quite Ford-ian in its way.

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  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★★ 8

  Starring: King Kong Ain’t Got Sh!t On Denzel

  Edward Zwick, in only his second feature picture, reveals his considerable skills as a director who can capture and convey an impressive sense of scale. This is evident in both simple moments, like the soldiers singing or dancing before going into war, and more intricate ones, like the climactic fight, which can hold its own against the best films from the most seasoned directors. The technical components of the film, from the sweeping cinematography to James Horner's simple but memorable score, all succeed in capturing the film's underlying inspiration and solemnity.

  However, the performances are what make this picture worth seeing and why I kept revisiting it. The cast as a whole…

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  Review by FilmApe ★★★½ 12

  I liked this film more when it was remade with Tom Cruise playing a samurai.

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  Review by CinemaVoid 🏴‍☠️ ★★★½ 4

  What’s so civil about war anyway?

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  Review by Adam Kempenaar ★★★ 6

  Not sure how to express it other than to say that, from a 2016 perspective anyway, boy does this feel awfully puffed up and self-congratulatory – with the James Horner score the puffiest.

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  Review by RanchoTuVu ★★★★★ 2

  Much of "Glory" is based upon the letters Robert Gould Shaw wrote detailing his experiences during the Civil War. He was from a wealthy Boston family that supported the abolitionist movement. He entered the war like other men of his time who brought with them into battle their literary influences, and who were killed in droves. Matthew Broderick seems to play that part like he was born into it. He nails that Hawthorne inspired patrician background that we mistake as wimpy but actually has fearlessness written all over it. Broderick made it look like it was inbred in his character. I disagree with the view of "Glory" that suggests the Shaw character is a white savior. It suggests "Glory" is…

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  Review by Tentin Quarantino ☭ ★★★★ 7

  The Hollywood-ness of this film is suffocating, and the white savior stuff is more gross than the exploding head. Otherwise, it's probably the best Civil War film. Not like there's much competition, though.

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  Review by Etienne Garde ★★★½ 4

  Hm, den hatte ich irgendwie besser in Erinnerung.
  Denzel natürlich wahnsinnig gut. Auch Morgan Freeman spielt gewohnt stark. Matthew Broderick spielt ein bisschen den "white saviour" und das noch nicht mal gut. Ich finde ihn ehrlich gesagt fehlbesetzt und es fällt gerade im Vergleich zu Washington und Freeman ziemlich auf.
  James Horners Soundtrack ist mir hier und da auch zu dick aufgetragen, wirkt aber trotzdem, weil das Thema an sich natürlich schon mitreissend ist. Alles in allem ein Film, der etwas aus der Zeit gefallen ist, der aber durch starke Performances, tolle Sets und gut inszenierte Action überzeugt.

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  Review by 20oldboy03 ★★★½ 2

  Weihnachtszeit ist Klassiker/Kultzeit die Sechste (6/3)

  
  English Version below

  
  Hallo liebe Zuschauer, ich bin heute hier in meinem Feierabend, sehe nach draußen zu den gezuckerten Bergen, Hügeln und den Bäumen zu Dutzenden und Dutzenden einsam wie in Zweierreihe und in kleinen wie größeren Gruppen stehend, sitze auf wie in der Delle meiner durch meinen Hintern verursachten Matratze, habe die Fernbedienung in der Hand höhergeschraubter Akustik und sehe mir ein oftmals vergessenen Film unter den Reihen zu tausenden Gleichgesinnter Kriegsfilmen und den spärlichen rund um den Amerikanischen Bürgerkrieg an.

  Der Film, zuerst klein gehalten im sich langsamen ausdehnen in der bleibenden Übersicht seines Schwerpunktes an den Fersen der 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (die 54. Massachusetts Freiwilligeninfanterie), einem der ersten schwarzen Regimenter…

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  Review by Ava ☭ ★★★½ 1

  Cannot believe Matthew Broderick (who killed two people in Ireland in 1987) ended racism!!! Shocking story!!!