What a fantastic movie... beautifully shot, terrific story, incredible music. Belizaire carries his torch for Alida, the love of his life, to the end, and uses his knowledge of superstitions to get his way. A fairly accurate portrayal of life in the Bayou, and the prejudices faced by the Acadian settlers, and how so many of them dealt with it. In my opinion, this has to be one of Armand Assante's best roles. Humor, tragedy, excitement, and intrigue, all rolled into one package. The only reason I can figure that this movie has gotten a low rating here is that there must be a number of people who are heavily weighted voters that simply voted it down with the good olé' "it was stupid," (read: I have no idea what was going on, nothing exploded, people had funny accents, and the music was weird)mentality. See it, decide for yourself.

Belizaire the Cajun sates my movie palate on every viewing, with a rich gumbo of music, smartly comic characters, romance, and social passions. The community's herbalist healer, Belizaire (Armand Assante), does all he can to defend his friends from vigilantes threatening to banish or hang them. Compromise is not in his nature, but bargaining is. The resulting passion play reveals the tangle of power in the community.Belizaire is as fun to watch as The Lion In Winter, and more uplifting, because its motivations include love and justice, in addition to power and intrigue. Relationships in movies are rarely as real as in Belizaire the Cajun, so I especially recommend it to reality TV fans.

Having grown up in Acadiana and having some of that blood running through my own person, I didn't have to look to this movie to get a historical understanding of the people in the story. However, anyone who didn't grow up in Louisiana themselves knows either nothing, or stereotypical inaccuracies (which is worse), about Acadians (Cajuns). It's too bad the movie couldn't have shown more of this aspect in order to give its viewers a more genuine representation and history. The acting in the movie was, for the most part, very good, as was the story . My main problem with the movie is the almost total lack of French. I understand that there are white people in the movie who spoke only English, but it would have been much more accurate had the Acadians been speaking Cajun French amongst themselves. That aside, the movie is enjoyable and not inaccurate in its representation of a people and their culture.

This is a fine film-- not necessarily a great one, but one with some great content. Armand Assante, who like the late character actor, J. Carrol Naish, is able to place himself seamlessly in almost any ethnic role, from a Cuban to a Greek, is Belizaire, the Cajun. Little knowledge will be gained about these marvelous people who were expelled in early 19th century British ethnic cleansing from L'Acadie, a region near present-day Quebec, to the Dominican Republic, scattered along the eastern seaboard of the US and then making their way back to Francophone Louisiana. The term 'Cajun,' comes from a local pronunciation of Acadian. The Cajuns fiercely separate themselves ethnically from the other descendants of the French immigrants, the Creoles both culturally and linguistically and doggedly maintain their cultural traditions into the present time. This film, which is not at all badly done, touches little of that and gives only a tiny taste of Cajun culture...but in the brief spot using the music of Michael Doucet and his band, Beausoleil-- what a taste! The plot, Belizaire is an entrepreneur and pleasant con-man who's in a love competition with Will Patton (in an early role), leads to complications in which Belizaire is willing to sacrifice his life to bring peace with his non-Cajun neighbors. In the end, Belizaire uses his quick wits and con-man skills to make the situation right. I would have liked to have seen much more of the Cajun way of life brought in. But, there were some fine local scenes and the costumes and settings looked great. The Cajuns are a fascinating group of people with wonderful music and traditions. We get only occasional glances of this rapidly disappearing way of life and this film adds another glimpse which should not be passed up, no matter how imperfect it is. This film is available on video and is certainly worth the price of rental. If it crops up on the late show, I would certainly check it out.