This movie was actually cool, but it lacks emotion in some scenes. I can't feel the glory of their winning and the spirit. The opening was so scary, made my mind thinking what could that black thing be? I'm so glad that slavery is, I think, over now. What they did to Africans were so cruel and sadistic.

In 1839 a group of 53 slaves are taken aboard a ship headed for America from Cuba. Cinque, a slave on the ship, leads the others in a violent rebellion. They take over the ship in a way that exposes the violence and the measures that they were willing to take in order to achieve freedom. When they arrive in America they immediately become prisoners while faced with an intense debate. Midway through this film viewers get a glimpse of Cinque's life before being taken into captivity. They show him with his family in his village to accentuate the true damaging effect of slavery. This movie serves to emphasize the pain and suffering that they went through physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Despite historical inaccuracies and some sloppiness in the acting Amistad remains a great film.The depiction of this group of slaves, dehumanized by the processes involved with slavery, may not be totally historically correct, but it gave a good visualization of the horrors of slavery that most probably hadn't seen. At the time of this uprising, slavery divided our entire country, and was easily the most pressing issue to deal with. During one scene, President Van Buren faces the harsh reality that his re-election could be based on the decision he makes on this case. Incidents like what happened on La Amistad are what lead our country to civil war, because neither side wanted to budge on what they believed was right.When the film begins, you see a slave struggling, desperate to get a nail out of the floorboard so he can unshackle himself. He breaks free, and releases a group of other men and they take knives and murder several crew members on the boat and take two hostage. The scene cuts after you watch a struggle between a slave and a crew member, and the slave repeatedly plunges his sword into the mans stomach while shouting as loud as he can. At this point you see these slaves as savages and murderers, who can't speak any language but their primitive slave language. However it isn't until well into the trial when Cinque tells his story that we see what he went through to get to that point. He was captured with a net, beaten with a club, he had to watch public whippings, people being thrown into the sea to drown, he was crowded into a tight room with at least a hundred other slaves, most completely naked, and forced to fight for food, with people defecating everywhere. None of this was uncommon during the days of slavery. Kids had to watch as their parents were beaten, killed, raped, etc. This gives the average Joe Shmoe a visual on how horrible slavery truly was, as apposed to reading it in a textbook. Spielberg depicts this scene at the bottom of the ship, crowded with men, women, and children struggling for dear life, being treated like animals, amazingly. For me that was one of the most moving scenes in the movie, and reminded me what slavery really was.Another great scene was early in the trial, the prosecuting lawyer stands up before the court, and says how inhumane the slaves were to slaughter the crew. This is completely and totally ironic because of the dehumanization of slaves and the cruel and unusual treatment they have to suffer. This shows the attitude people had towards slavery at the time. Overall I thought that Spielberg did an amazing job with this story, and it would have been a 9 or 10 out of 10 had it not been for some historical inaccuracies and inconsistencies

Now I'm not really one for history. Never really was. But when I had first learned about the Amistad I was intrigued. I loved the idea of a group of slaves finally doing something about their captors on the ship (And on top of that Morgan Freeman starred in the film so you know I had to see it). The Film itself was extremely accurate to the actual event. It felt like I was actually watching a part in history before there were cameras or anything like that. My favorite scene in the film had to be when Cinque was having a flashback to what happened and how he came to America. From what I've learned in school, the treatment of slaves was accurately displayed however I was quite surprised when they threw the slaves overboard. Spielberg showed what happened if slaves got sick, if there were too many slaves on board, and the process and suffering the slaves went through. Throughout the film, before the translator came in, I found the African Americans extremely comical. The lawyers desperately tried to communicate with the Africans to save their lives and the Africans are just standing there thinking they're idiots. Their lines were comical and the whites had no clue what was going on. Overall, I thought the film was fantastic and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in history, slavery, or just want to watch a good movie.