FemaleFirst.co.uk: DVD: Ride With The Devil [DVD] [1999]

Ride With The Devil [DVD] [1999]
enlarge	Director: Ang Lee Actors: Tobey Maguire, Skeet Ulrich, Jeffrey Wright, Jewel Studio: Entertainment in Video Category: DVD List Price: ~~£19.99~~ Buy New: £2.03 as of 21/11/2009 16:27 GMT details You Save: £17.96 (90%) New (16) Used (7) from £1.99 Seller: direct_offers_uk Rating: 22 reviews Sales Rank: 9374 Format: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen Language: English (Original Language) Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over Region: 2 Discs: 1 Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Number Of Discs: 1 Running Time: 135 Minutes Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2 Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6 EAN: 5017239190605 ASIN: B00004T8VQ Theatrical Release Date: January 4, 2001 Release Date: May 15, 2000 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days


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Editorial Reviews: Amazon.co.uk Review Great period pictures make you feel as if you've stepped into another era, heard its language, breathed its spirit, and come away with a fresh perspective on that time as well as your own. IRide with the Devil/I is one of those special films--why wasn't it more widely embraced by reviewers and filmgoers? Did it rely too much on our patience for slow accumulation of unforced rhythms and meanings (as opposed to IThe Patriot/I, which "moved" audiences with cattle-prod simplicity and manipulation)? IRide with the Devil/I--smart, handsome, tenderly awed by how individual lives get ambushed by history--is ripe for rediscovery.p The Civil War of battlefields and plantation houses is nowhere to be seen here. Instead we see the war as an improvised and largely blundering but very bloody feud among neighbours in the border state of Missouri. In this bucolic war zone--more than a little reminiscent of the Balkans in the late 1990s--the Taiwanese-born director Ang Lee (IThe Ice Storm/I) traces the destinies of several young Southern bushwhackers (guerrilla fighters) as they experience violence, the seasons, and different kinds of love. Skeet Ulrich draws the aristocratic glamour role (and top billing), but he's overshadowed by Tobey Maguire as a first-generation American, the magnificent Jeffrey Wright (a shameful oversight at Oscar time) as a freed slave fighting beside his former master, and singer Jewel in a very natural acting debut as the young widow who graces all their lives. The title IThe Birth of a Nation/I was already taken, but by the end of this movie you feel it would have applied here. --IRichard T. Jameson, Amazon.com/I

Customer Reviews: Showing reviews 1-5 of 22 1 2 3 4 5 Next » The best Civil War movie ever? July 20, 2004 adanield (Glasgow United Kingdom) 40 out of 42 found this review helpful Possibly. But even if some people disagree, there is no denying that it is a fabulous movie. It moves along with a grace and ease that many films of this genre cannot manage. While it is Tobey Maguire and Skeet Ullrich who share the top billing, starring as two teenage boys who become Bushwhackers (Guerilla soldiers who fight for the southern cause along the Kansas and Missouri border during the American Civil War) after Ullrich's father is killed and his house burnt down by Northern Jayhawkers, this is really Maguire and Jeffery Wright's film. Maguire's character is of German descent, a thing out of the ordinary amongst the White Anglo-saxon Protestant southerners, and as such is viewed with suspicion (and in one case downright hostility) by many of the men he is fighting alongside, something that his German Father warned him would happen. He also harbours his own prejudices however, especially against a freed Negro (Wright) who is fighting with them, but as the film moves on Maguire begins to look at events through a different perspective. The acting by all the leads is exceptional, but it is Maguire and Wright who must take most of the plaudits. They are both outsiders, thrown together fighting for a cause, that by all natural laws they should be fighting against. Their changing relationship, from suspicion on Maguire's part to acceptance and then finally to deep friendship is the core of the movie. Ullrich, Jewel (who plays a young widowed southern women romanced first by Ullrich and then Maguire) Jonathon Rhys-Meyers (as a psychotic Jayhawker) and Jim Caviezel (as a southern commander) all turn in first rate performances, but it is Maguire and Wright who really drive the movie along. It is an intelligent, thought provoking, moving, amusing, uplifting and sad movie. Basically the kind of movie that mainstream Hollywood tends to shy away from, and unfortunately, the kind of movie that mainstream audiences tend to pass over. This is a great pity, because Ride with the Devil deserved to take a bucketload of Oscars and a barrowload of Dollars at the box office, which it did neither of. Work of genius December 14, 2006 patrick 1916 (London) 5 out of 5 found this review helpful Outsanding movie that will linger on in the mind long after the final scenes. Vivid brutal portrayal of Civil war and how it steels men souls and compels them to do terrible things in the name of cause. Maguire is excellent, he portrays a farmers son who along with some friends conduct a clandestine war on behalf of the Confederacy. In the course of the movie he loses close friends, becomes disillusioned with war and violence and in the process becomes a man. Some of the imagery is breath taking, the acting excellent, surley one of the greatest Civil war movies ever made and a beautiful love story to boot. No idle sentimenet just a cracking movie that continues to delight on more viewings. Movies dont get much better than this. A Trully Brilliant Epic August 18, 2001 Nigel Harris (newage_hippie@yahoo.co.uk) (Chatham, England) 7 out of 13 found this review helpful Some people may find this film boring, but it certainly isn't that. There is more to the story than most people see. This is definately a film to see over and over. The actors are stunning, at first I only saw this film because of Jewel, but I saw this film for what it was, and not just Jewel, a stunning epic, that was very under-estimated. This should have been a very popular film. Startlingly good! July 29, 2007 Jack Mays (Dublin, Ireland) 1 out of 1 found this review helpful Ang Lee isn't interested in reenacting the major incidents that took place during the American Civil War in his period piece Ride with the Devil. Instead, the talented Tawain-born director -- who won a deserved Oscar for Brokeback Mountain -- is more concerned with the effects the war had on those who were on the losing side. Ride with the Devil is a contemplative, incisive treatment of a period of great turmoil in America's short history, approached from a unique viewpoint. br / br /The film stars the reliable Tobey Maguire as Jake Roedel, the son of a German immigrant. Despite his father's strong support for Lincoln and the Union, Jake considers himself a Confederate. But not all of the community feel he's one of them. No matter how hard he tries, he will forever be an outsider it seems. br / br /Then when the father of his best friend Jack Bull Chiles (Skeet Ulrich) is savagely murdered by a gang of Unionists, Jake and his friend pursue a life of crime among the bushwhackers, an army of Conferate guerrilla fighters led by Black John (Jim Caviezel). Lee highlights the absence of ideals in the hearts and minds of most soldiers. These men join the cause to pursue a vendetta. Once they have got revenge, Jake and Jack don't have much to fight for -- the war is all but over. br / br /Practically the only female figure in the film is in the form of Sue Lee (popstar Jewel), a widow who is swiftly wooed by Jack Bull. Showing restraint and subtle composure, Jewel proves to be a robust thesp. She doesn't collapse into a fountain of tears alla Gwyneth Paltrow,despite the fact her character's "had bad luck" (severe bad luck, I hasten to add) br / br /It would of course be an oversight to neglect to at least touch on the issue of slavery that fuelled the Civil War. Focusing on the side of the Confederates, the film presents us with an anomaly: Daniel Holt (played with quiet integrity by Jeffrey Wright), a black character who is effectively fighting for his "right" to be a slave. He fights alongside the very people who subjugate and taunt him. In one excruciating scene, he's belittled by the visiting Sue as well as his own companions while he sits in the shadows, resigned to this torment. He is indebted to George Clyde (Simon Baker), a bushwhacker who bought him out of slavery. Yet George Clyde condescends to Holt and treats him more like a beloved pet than a fellow human being. br / br /Initially treating him as an inferior, Jake gradually realises Daniel (or "Holt" as he's more commonly referred to) is the only companion he's got and sees beyond the colour of his skin. There is a direct correlation between Jake's growing tolerance of Holt and his own disillusionment with the cause he's fighting for. As the casualties pile up, he begins to wonder what they died for. He begins to loose that feeling of solidarity with fellow bushwhackers; in the bigoted Pitt Mackeson (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) he has a nemesis to deal with who is on the same side of the battlefield as him. The ambiguity of war has never been more convincing than here. The Lawrence massacre (a true-life event which cost the lives of 180 innocent civilians) that he himself partakes in despite his reservations seems to be indicative of the state of affairs: random violence and casual slaughter in the name of nothing more than pride and a refusal to change. Conveying every internal conflict on his eternally youthful face, Tobey Maguire gives a performance that makes you wish he had spent those years working on the Spiderman franchise doing more acting and less action. br / br /The denouement may be a bit lengthy but it does allow the characters to breathe and blossom. As the characters heal from both their emotional and physical wounds, Ang Lee takes his time to round out his characters. Ang Lee's tone is sympathetic but is never in danger of veering into sentimentality. And although it would be described as a sombre film, James Schamus's screenplay includes some moments of unforced humour that lighten the occasionally stilted dialogue at times. When the time comes for Holt to depart and pursue his own life, we must leave two of the most compelling characters I've encountered on film. And while the film looks forward to an America that has been changed for ever, I found myself thinking back to scenes which involved Holt or Jake. It's a film laden with tragedy but I found it strangely uplifting: I wore a smile as the screen faded to black. Intelligent and pertinent film December 15, 2008 Jaybird (London, UK) 1 out of 1 found this review helpful A fascinating film of the American Civil War, told from the perspective of the Southerners, which has much to say about war today. The position of sympathising with the Southern slave-owners puts the viewer into a delberately uncomfortable position br / br /The film tells the story of a young, disorganised group of soldiers, thrust into doing terrible things for a cause that they do not fully understand. It deals with racism and the effects of violence. br / br /Perhaps the most telling scene is when the central characters discuss whether they will eventually succeed. They talk about how the yankees, in building a new town, built the schoolhouse first. They were always going to win because they want the whole world to think like them, whereas the Southerners are merely fighting to be left alone and continue their lives as they know it. br / br /Fantastic Showing reviews 1-5 of 22 1 2 3 4 5 Next »

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