Emancipation (now on Apple TV+) is Will Smith’s first movie since he won an Oscar (for King Richard) and earned heaps of public scorn (for slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars). So it better be a GOOD movie, right? Right. It’s a BOATS (Based On A True Story) movie and two-hour chase about a fellow known to history only as Gordon, a former enslaved man who was the subject of a famous photo showing the scars on his back from being whipped. He became a symbol of the abolitionist movement, but the movie isn’t about that; rather, it’s a fictionalized version of his escape from a Louisiana plantation, directed by the ever-prolific Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Infinite, The Equalizer).
EMANCIPATION: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Peter (Smith) washes his wife Dodienne’s (Charmaine Bingwa) weary feet. Their children sit nearby. He prays. And then the men come for him – the workers, the overseers of the plantation. They drag him away, fighting. He stomps on one man and bites another, but he’s outnumbered. Into the caged cart with the other slaves he goes. Dodienne and the children will continue to pick cotton in the fields while Peter and many other Black men build railroad tracks under the supervision of cruel white men. Not too far off, the Civil War rages. The armies of the North are encroaching deep into Louisiana. Explosions regularly occur in Peter’s vicinity but they’re not from a conflict of man vs. man, rather, man vs. nature, as workers use dynamite to clear paths through the forest. The trains will go through carrying arms for the South.
The keepers are fiery-eyed men, cruel and malevolent. Peter is a deeply spiritual person who reminds his fellow enslaved men that “God is with us” during dark moments, such as when he sits and watches the slavers brand a Black man on his cheek. He howls in pain until he’s taken to the pen, where he growls at Peter, “God is not with you. He is nowhere!” Peter retorts, “I do not know why God shows himself to some but not to others.” Which is to say, he moves in mysterious ways – enough to further entrench one man’s faith, enough to further another’s disillusionment.
The supervisor of this endeavor is Fassel (Ben Foster), who’s much calmer than the other men. He sits with legs crossed, puffing on a corncob pipe, dog by his side. His eyes are cold. He’s a sociopath. He’ll kill a Black man with a bullet with hardly a thought. During the workday bustle Peter overhears that the North has taken Baton Rouge – five days’ trek through the swamp. He watches as a Black man falls over, worked quite literally to death. Peter’s ordered to drag the dead man into a mass grave and shovel lye into the stinking pit. The first shovelful goes in and the second, into an overseer’s face, inciting a hasty revolt. He fights. He grabs a knife. He dashes into the woods. Three escapees trail him, and behind them, Fassel and two of his men and three dogs. Ahead of Peter lies stagnant swamp, alligators, mosquito swarms and God knows what else – other terrible men, surely – but what he leaves behind him is undoubtedly worse.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Emancipation combines the at-times breakneck chase through the wilderness of Apocalypto with the Civil War battles of Glory and slavery-era bios Harriet and The Birth of a Nation.
Performance Worth Watching: The screenplay doesn’t give Smith much to work with, so he underplays, remaining intently focused, nonverbally characterizing Peter as a man of pride, endurance and determination.
Memorable Dialogue: Peter argues for an escape attempt with a fellow enslaved man:
“There are many ways to die in the swamp.”
“There are many ways to die here.”
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: Fuqua shoots Emancipation leached of almost all color, nearly black-and-white – forest greens are gray, browns are muted and the only defining colors are red blood from Peter’s wounds, spattered on foliage for dogs to follow, and the blazing orange of fire. The aesthetic suggests an arid, empty moral landscape, in direct spite of the natural beauty of the Louisiana swampland. Peter crawls through mud and trudges through knee-high marsh, reaching one horror scene after another: Another plantation, where the children are trained to yell “Runner!” and ring a warning bell. A home on fire, the grounds littered with bodies from what appears to be another slave revolt. A battlefield where the earth is torn to shreds and smoking. A world where one person enslaves another is bleached, ugly and torn asunder.
Beyond that, the film offers little substance. There’s a moment where an alligator leaps from the water to snatch Peter by his shirttail and haul him under, and it’s utterly shocking because, prior to that, the film appeared to be rooted in artfully rendered realism. From there, Emancipation doesn’t broaden its characters, but narrows them into the parameters of exploitation: Peter as the righteous and noble man who will do anything – no matter how improbable, like besting a swamp gator with a knife – to acquire freedom and reunite with his family. And Fassel is a one-note snake, quiet and uncharismatic, Foster not allowed room for psychological intimidation or even an affectation. A few times, the narrative cuts away from Peter to Dodienne and the children, and they’re given such little relevant screen time, you wonder why the scenes weren’t cut entirely.
Using the fight to end slavery in America and the scant details of Gordon’s story as an excuse to stage a tepid action-chase film leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Emancipation squanders Smith, a movie star whose ability to fully inhabit characters has blossomed over the years, as well as Fuqua’s instincts as an inspired visual director. What the movie gives us is Smith running and running and running with an unvarying expression of consternation, and Fuqua stringing together a B-movie behind the facade of prestige. The photo of Gordon speaks volumes; this film “about” him has damn near nothing to say.
Our Call: SKIP IT. Emancipation is a disappointment as a drama and an action movie.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.