It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Personally, i loved to watch biography movies. And, for this movie i saw what's the difference about life and humanity. Humanity issue is so powering of this movies. Life is not about being hedonic, but other's freedom is more important than everything. This movie told you about how to treat people in your circle greatly. How to empathy for they feelings. And, as a conclusion life is all about how you to treat people more than you treat yourself. If you want to see movies that's all about human mankind, this is an answer. Clearly emphatetic.

Newton Knight deserts from the Confederate forces and becomes a figurehead among a group of escaped slaves and fellow deserters. After guerrilla warfare with the local forces who are tasked with raising resources from local farmers (often leaving them with nothing), Newt's people declare Jones County to be independent of the Confederacy. And they have even more work to do once the Civil War ends.Matthew McConaughey in a horrible beard plays Newt, an extraordinary ordinary man trying to do his best to balance conscience, family, right and wrong, in a miserable war of attrition and injustice. This true (albeit dramatised) story is fairly low-profile - I have never seen mention of any of the events in it before, but this dramatisation does well to convey why the Civil War started, the deeply held prejudices which prevailed throughout and which remained in place long beyond its end (the main narrative is interspersed with flash-forwards to a court case involving one of Newt's descendants in the fairly recent past, which makes the point that winning a war doesn't change minds).There are some action sequences - the opening battle scene is gripping and visceral - but this is mainly a thoughtful and leisurely recounting of one man's part in the fate of a small area of the USA during and after the Civil War: as such, there is more by way of discussion than action. Some might say it is slow and overlong: I had no problem.Having said that, the location work conveys a strong impression of the swampy, difficult farmland, and small townships where these events took place, and all the cast does well.And I, personally, walked away with my sense of injustice reinforced. We still haven't got it right, but at least we are making progress.

Movie Review: "Free State of Jones" (2016)Entirely carried by an raging on-screen portrayal, initiated through leading actor Matthew McConaughey as dramatized character of Confederation deserting Newton Knight under the direction of "Seabiscuit" (2003) director Gary Ross, who delivers also an overlong screenplay pushed into overlong editorial of a 130 Minutes by completely overthrown and emotionally-underminded editors Pamela Martin and Juliette Welfing, literally ruin an otherwise compelling motion picture on never-seen-before aftermath scenarios on the U.S. Civil-War, raging over the North American continent with believed 1,000,000 immigrant-deceding U.S. people dead in just four years between 1861 and 1865, when rebel-region organizing ultra-republic-indulging character Knight must fight in a seemingly-desolated Southern American environment designed to plain non-cinematic splendors by production designer Philip Messina, when visual coverage by cinematographer Benoit Delhomme tends to fail under fast-track mainly hand-held shotlist, when an 50 Million Dollar budget raised by an indecisiveness-prolonging army of producers, co-producer and executives alike cost "Free State of Jones" not only an financial return on an independently-received investment, but also the favors of the domestic audiences in early U.S. domestic releases of Summer 2016, when it could have been strategical improvement to set motion picture exhibitions on an emotionally inbounding pre-Thanksgiving release date, when additional calmer-received suspense-pushing editorial cuts to coming in with focus on an action-oriented running time of a 105 minutes in order to share justice with an hardship-enduring below-the-line crew as emotionally fully-prepared Matthew McConaughey; and then again a close-to-buried supporting cast performed by uprising performers Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mahershala Ali as spellbinding Moses.FAZIT: Picture declined (wasted) © 2018 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

An ex-Confederate organizes a rebellion in southeastern Mississippi during the American Civil War and continues to battle for equal rights for freedmen during Reconstruction in Free State of Jones (2016), written and directed by Gary Ross. The film alternates between the 1860s and a 1948 miscegenation trial, to the detriment of both. Free State of Jones bombed at the box office and received mixed reviews from critics.The film begins at the Battle of Corinth in northeastern Mississippi, October 3-4, 1862, in which Confederate forces under Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn attempted to dislodge Union forces commanded by Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans from fortifications around the town of Corinth. Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey) is a medical orderly in the Confederate army from Jones County, a predominantly poor area with few slaves.Knight is disgruntled to learn of a Confederate law that allows sons of plantation owners to avoid military service depending on the number of slaves his family owns. This was designed to guard against slave uprisings, but it angered some poor whites who believed they were fighting a "rich man's war". When Knight returns the body of his nephew Daniel (Jacob Lofland) to his home county, he learns that Confederate Captain Elias Hood (Thomas Francis Murphy) is excessively confiscating goods from the local population.Things get complicated when Knight meets and falls in love with a slave, Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), despite being married to Serena (Keri Russell). He fights back against the tax collectors and hides out in the swamp, where he meets fugitive slaves and befriends Moses (Mahershala Ali). Together with other deserters, they successfully rebel against the Confederacy and proclaim a Free State of Jones. After the war, freed slaves struggle against a segregationist South.The events of the Civil War era and after are interwoven with the 1948 miscegenation trial of one of Knight's decendants, Davis Knight (Brian Lee Franklin), a product of his affair with Rachel. The Mississippi Supreme Court eventually overturned Davis' conviction, but this postscript to the story seems out of place in the larger narrative. It would have been better to briefly show the trial as an epilogue, or have the whole film about the trial with flashbacks to the events of the 1860s. Instead, Free State of Jones feels like two films awkwardly smashed together.Still, Free State of Jones features some solid performances. Matthew McConaughey needs no introduction. He transformed himself from teen heartthrob to accomplished actor, starring in films like Dallas Buyers Club (2013) and TV shows like True Detective. In 2016, he also played the lead role in Gold. McConaughey performed admirably in Free State of Jones, although his transition from combat orderly to brilliant guerrilla leader is less than convincing.Mahershala Ali, an African American actor from California, has appeared steadily in film and television since the early 2000s, most notably as Boggs in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay parts one and two. Though forced to play second fiddle to McConaughey in Free State of Jones, Ali brings to life his fictional character and personifies the plight of politically active freedmen following the Civil War.Free State of Jones is not a strict retelling of history, but it remains faithful to events writer/director Gary Ross wanted to portray. Much of Newton Knight's complicated personal life was simplified for the screen, and the scene depicting a handful of Confederates attacking a Union position while Knight and his nephew try to flee was unrealistic. This and other inaccuracies are relatively minor.It's a shame this film fell flat, because the American Civil War is such a rich period of history with so many compelling stories to tell. For some reason it's been difficult for Hollywood to get it right. Glory (1989), which won three academy awards, shows it's possible to create a compelling and popular drama set during the Civil War. Free State of Jones unfortunately missed the mark.