Emancipation

Emancipation

Inspired by the gripping true story of a man who would do anything for his family—and for freedom. When Peter, an enslaved man, risks his life to escape and return to his family, he embarks on a perilous journey of love and endurance.

  • Released: 2022-12-02
  • Runtime: 132 minutes
  • Genre: Drama, History, Thrillers
  • Stars: Will Smith, Ben Foster, Charmaine Bingwa, Steven Ogg, Gilbert Owuor, Mustafa Shakir, Grant Harvey, Ronnie Gene Blevins, Jayson Warner Smith, Jabbar Lewis, Michael Luwoye, Aaron Moten, Imani Pullum
  • Director: Antoine Fuqua
 Comments
  • steve-lucas63 - 27 November 2023
    De saturation of saturated subject
    As someone who isn't American, I'm quite surprised that this movie has had so many poor reviews. True, the fundamental story has been told many times in film over the last 30 years in particular; the themes are far from new; but this story is presented well. It has good pacing and the cinematography is quite breathtaking - the subtle shifts between a de-saturated B & W scenes, through to the introduction of natural hues really adds to the experience. The acting performances are convincing, though it's true that we don't learn to great depth what all main characters are feeling.

    In summary, I feel this is well worth watching.
  • avindugunasinghe - 5 July 2023
    A nightmare and a sigh of relief
    Emancipation is like a nightmare where the monster chases the runner. Crystal clear visuals compensating to the colour tones is remarkable. Cinematography is excellent capturing the vastness of Louisiana Swamps. Powerful visuals that tells a great amount of story that cannot be put to script. Movie centers on the obstacle course Peter overcome making the story a snippet of one man's life who wins his freedom the hard way still this potential deviation from historic accuracies adds a uniqueness and most importantly a religiousness based on a faith that's tested. Will Smith's sincere performance make the experience very much worthwhile.
  • madanmarwah - 12 April 2023
    A slave's painful run for freedom
    There are certain movies which have a long runtime and we feel that it should have been around 30 minutes lesser. This is one such movie of 127 minutes runtime which tends to get monotonous after 90 minutes when the main plot is over and the second part of the story of 37 minutes duration begins. This second part could have been made shorter. It is a serious story of an oppressed slave's efforts in breaking free and achieving freedom. Peter is a devout Christian and is steadfast in his faith. He quotes from the bible frequently. Typical of those times, women and children were forced to pick cotton while men were used as labour. It is 1863 in America and President Lincoln has just abolished slavery. This encourages slave Peter ( Will Smith) to run for freedom through jungles and swamps ( full of crocodiles) and reach the American army for safety. A big portion of the movie relates to Peter being chased by the plantation owners on horseback with sniffer dogs through the forests in thick mud most of the time. An exercise of courage in the face of adversities and challenges indeed.

    All credit to director Antoine Fuqua for giving a raw and realistic touch to the plot line. He has rightly selected the black and white format since the extremely serious subject calls for it. He is helped with some outstanding cinematography which faithfully captures the treacherous location, the physical suffering of the characters along with their emotions. The visuals show distress, pain ,injury, agony etc. The director's decision to use aerial shots with drones very effectively to cover the expanse of the jungle and the battlefield is praiseworthy. A highlight is of course the superb acting of Will Smith who gets under the skin of the character. (Reminded me of Leonardo's role in "The revenant"). A monologue about the torture he had undergone is well delivered by him. Worth mentioning is the nice performance of Ben Foster. The conclusion mentions the "Emancipation proclamation " declared by President Lincoln.
  • pootc - 28 December 2022
    A valiant effort overshadowed
    Emancipation is a valiant effort by all involved which has been overshadowed by Will Smith's unfortunate actions at the Academy Awards.

    The story is simple. A slave on the run and being hunted while trying to return to his family.

    It's a great performance by Will Smith who gets down and dirty in the role with top notch production, especially the cinematography. But the choice to desaturate the picture was questionable. An artistic choice and while I understand the symbolism behind the choice, I found it completely unnecessary. I think it took away from the film. Black and white, terrible times. I get it but I'd love to see this again with some of that colour and detail restored.
  • lhevi - 24 December 2022
    Beautiful movie
    I have no idea why such low ratings Emancipation was absolutely wonderful. A lot of people have complained about the movie being done in black and white, at first I was turned off by the coloring but after 20 minutes in you get used to it. The scenery was so beautiful in this movie. Will Smith did a wonderful job I cried when he gave his speech. Please don't be turned away by these bad reviews Emancipation is a must watch! The only negative is the long chase.. yeah we've seen this a lot with recent films about slavery. I wish the chase didn't take up an hour of the movie. Other than that Emancipation is the best movie I've seen in a long time. I truly believe this is Will Smith best movie. Good job Will!!
  • nebukanezer - 20 December 2022
    Colorless
    Exaggerated brutality on a thin plot which basically is a 2hr long chase through swamps followed by a battle and a family reunion.

    A big fan of movies based on historical events - such as e.g. 12 years a slave - Emancipation misses the mark for me on a couple of key points:

    1. My biggest gripe with the movie would be the portrayal of the slavers - i.e the "baddies". They are so overly and unrealistically portrayed as sadistic brutes that credibility of this being a historic movie on slavery quickly evaporated. In the same way that most people don't sadistically torture their pets in today's society just for fun I don't believe that most slavers sadistically tortured their slaves for fun in the mid 1800's. Don't get me wrong here as brutality and breach of human rights was on a massive scale, but to portray southern white men as unanimously sadistic terrorists is simply unnecessary rewriting of history. They were probably pretty normal people with their key objective being of getting stuff done, and with that probably worked on 'motivating' their slaves and workers to do it for them, which doesn't really include beating or killing them just for the sadistic pleasure of it.

    2. Secondly, I found the running and action scenes to be far too lengthy. On such a thin story, which could be summarized in a few sentences, there really isn't enough meat here to make a 2hr+ movie. Some of the running-through-woods and swamp scenes seemed never to end... and the action scenes were not particularly captivating either. It would have been a far more interesting movie with some more parallel story lines (such as the civil guard guys or the photographers) rather than bad action scenes. Again, it just misses the mark for me as this could have been a good historical movie.

    Other than that I didn't really appreciate Will Smiths acting which I also found quite exaggerated, and I personally don't have much positive to say about the grey/white light filter on the film which gives a really colorless hue to the movie. So a bit surprised to see others reviewing Smith's great acting and the great cinematography! Clearly subjective to say the least!

    But in summary, Colorless is perhaps a good summary for my view here. It could have shed some historically accurate color on the year 1863 when the Emancipation proclamation was adopted, but unfortunately I found the movie to be pretty bland and colorless.
  • movie-reviews-uk - 18 December 2022
    Apocalypse Now in the swamp but without the drama
    Having seen impressive anti-slavery films such as "12 Years a Slave" and even "Django Unchained" I had reasonably high hopes for "Emancipation". Unfortunately it says nothing new about the abomination of slavery and takes quite a while to go nowhere.

    Instead this is really a chase movie with Will Smith being persistently tracked by an implacable and unrelenting racist pursuer. There's an awful lot of wading through murky waters, sudden alertness to hounds in the distance and random acts of violence.

    This would all be quite moving if we cared about the characters. Unfortunately they say little and do nothing to make us care about them. The script and their motivations remain as bland and muted as the cinematography. Maybe the washed out palette of beige is meant to echo photographs of the era but oh! I was desperate for some colour (any colour) by the end.

    For all that "Emancipation" is not a bad film but it is somehow inoffensive despite the awful horrors being depicted. Now to make slavery inoffensive that really is a crime.
  • arungeorge13 - 15 December 2022
    An okayish blend of slavery drama, survival thriller, and war movie! [+53%]
    After watching Emancipation, I feel unsure of the producer's choice to pick Antoine Fuqua to direct this film. He's essentially an action-thriller guy, whose work (barring the excellent Training Day and the pretty solid Southpaw) is mostly positioned as popcorn entertainment. This film, on the other hand, requires a different approach. It's set in Lincoln-era Louisiana with the protagonist here being "Whipped Peter" whose scarred photograph is widely regarded as a symbol of the abolitionist movement during the American Civil War.

    The writing pitches the story of Peter (a highly effective Will Smith) in different tones, textures, and genres. Emancipation begins as a slavery drama with extended scenes of brutality and torture steadily driving home the point of how inhumane those times were. Before we know it, the film becomes a haunting survival thriller, with both nature and humankind working against Peter. This stretch, which also features a menacing Ben Foster, comprises the best parts. It truly rests on Smith and Foster's performances, and even with the latter's uni-dimensional character, he's incredibly easy to hate. Once we move on from this particular act, it becomes a true-blue war-action film with an impressively shot set-piece that's totally forgettable due to its placement.

    The force-fitting of all these genres into Peter's story is pretty much the film's undoing. Robert Richardson's cinematography desaturates Peter and his bleak environs, which works to an extent given the kind of story they're trying to tell. What also bothered me is the film's constant gospel and godly references trying to offer commentary and closure to some of the proceedings. While the superficial screenplay tries hard to render Peter's story as somewhat thrillingly unique, all it ends up doing is using slavery as a plot point.
  • hazem_zkr - 13 December 2022
    Emancipation
    I watched the movie, in general it is good and worth watching, my problem lies in the colors, why did they choose to show in black and white? I think there is an idea that the director wants to convey to the viewer. For me, as a viewer, this did not convince me, and I was struggling to get into the atmosphere of the movie. Will Smith's performance is good, he used his facial movements a lot to convince us of the character's suffering, and that was what really provoked me. It's not like his legendary performance in Pursuit of Happyness as an example, but overall it's good. Ben Foster's performance was very good. There is also a problem that I could not be deeply attached to the characters, and I think this is a problem with the script. The rating given on the site is low for the movie, and I do not know if this is related to the Oscar's incident last year? I think that is a clear injustice, and I think that the movie deserves 7 and above.
  • imvaughn - 12 December 2022
    Great Inspiring Movie
    Will Smith really shined in this movie. I found myself cheering him. The cinematic view of black and white war different but in a good way. It really gave the movie character and an old time feel. The pacing for the most part is good though there are some slow moments in the beginning. If you're looking for a cookie cutter CGI action click this isn't it. If you're looking for a thought provoking movie that inspires, this is it. The only complaint I have is the violence was mild. I think to really understand those times you have to face and show the ugly horrors of the day. This movie seemed a little toned down. With the R rating I think they could have gone further.