Hype is a fickle beast. Filmmakers don’t adopt the title of an historic and controversial entry in the American canon without trying to make a statement. The amount of anticipation preceding “The Birth of a Nation” would be weighty for any release. It’s crushing for this one. Writer-director-producer Nate Parker also probably didn’t expect that audiences would grapple with his personal demons as they watched our country’s original sin play out on screen. I will let the court of public opinion handle that issue and focus here only on the merits, which are surprisingly few. (NB: Jokes and juvenile snark are less abundant on account of the subject matter.)
“Birth” tells the story of Nat Turner, the slave and preacher who ignited a rebellion across Virginia plantations. The film opens with Turner as a young boy (Tony Espinosa), being told by a shaman and later his mistress (Penelope Ann Miller, where has she been?) that he is destined for greatness. The prologue is the most overbearing sequence in a movie that lacks nuance for days. He learns to read by memorizing The Good Book and grows up into a cotton picker by day, preacher by Sunday. Parker pulls quadruple duty as the adult Turner. His performance is mostly serviceable, at times inspired. Turner, on account of his education, is a privileged slave. He eventually becomes the right hand of his former playmate, Samuel Turner (Armie Hammer, sporting some unintentionally comic prosthetic choppers), and plays the initial tension between sidekick and servant quite nicely.
The same cannot be said for the rest of the cast. Any attempt to step outside the usual Hollywood bullpen for supporting roles should be welcome. In this case, we are treated to some serious amateur hour. Heck, casting Jackie Earle Haley as the dastardly slave hunter Raymond Cobb should have caused sparks on the silver screen. No luck. The slave owners should be abhorrent. Instead they’re second-rate Bond villains who surprisingly aren’t twisting their mustaches or emitting evil cackles. The editing is distracting. The score is banality made sonic. Parker has made an overly polished made-for-TV movie.
Parker must have spent as much time watching Mel Gibson films as he did researching the rebellion. A violent whipping scene and the gruesome torture of a slave are ripped from the “Passion of the Christ” playbook. To an even more frightening degree, this is “Braveheart” for the antebellum period. “Noooow!” becomes “Rebeeeeel!” Our hero’s wife is nearly murdered by the archenemy. A supposed ally betrays the cause. Every note, no more so than the (not a spoiler) final montage leading to Turner’s hanging, tracks the Oscar-winning picture’s format.
Within the span of two years, moviegoers witnessed a revisionist fantasy of the peculiar institution through “Django Unchained” and its unspeakable horrors portrayed eloquently in “12 Years a Slave.” Surely, a figure as consequential as Nat Turner is worthy of artistic examination. “Birth” is far from an essential addition to these contemporary classics.
So where did everything go wrong? Although not wholly effective as art, there are undeniable moments of beauty. Cotton fields in the early hours. The Virginia countryside at dusk. Turner’s wife Cherry (Aja Naomi King, tender) provides scenes of real humanity. There’s no question the fault lies with the script. Parker assigned himself a monumental film report on the slave rebellion leader and turned in the CliffsNotes version. The dialogue is risible and, in the hands of the cast, reads like a stilted stage play. What did the Sundance Grand Jury (and audience) see that I missed?
Amidst the tumult of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, this is not the film about America’s regrettable origins that the public should want or deserves. Parker squandered an opportunity to tell a largely unknown tale in the service of what can only be described as a vanity project. What’s more, any movie about slavery, based in fact or fiction, will be compared either to the 1915 film of the same name or, more appropriately, the aforementioned “12 Years a Slave.” “The Birth of a Nation” not only doesn’t play in the same sandbox as the latter film, it’s a boring attempt at doing so.
CLG Verdict: A mediocre attempt at capturing vital American history. Oscar contender? More like Oscar pretender.
The Birth of a Nation opens Friday October 7.
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