emancipation movie reviews

Emancipation

Two white photographers/abolitionists arrange Peter’s posture as he sits in a chair. They ask him to turn his scourged back toward the lens, to move his face to the side. The lens pushes in on him, and a totem for the ravages of virulent racism engraved across his body comes into view. Peter asks, “Why are you doing this?” The photographer reverently responds: “So the world might know what slavery truly looks like.” In a film that doesn’t care much about the universally historic impact of the image known as “Whipped Peter,” the conversation is ironic. Because over 150 years later, we’re still distributing depictions of the horrors of slavery, albeit, in the last half-century, through the power of the movies.

Granted, director Antoine Fuqua’s “Emancipation” isn’t wholly about enslavement. Instead, it sustains itself in the tension of biography and thriller, brutality and heroism, prestige drama, and suspenseful action film. If that tension between disparate styles and unlikely tones was intended, one might say that “Emancipation” is a keen attempt to recapture the subversive slave narratives in Blaxploitation. The character of Peter and the propulsive mood of Fuqua’s film have more in common with “ The Legend of Nigger Charley ” than “ 12 Years a Slave .” It’s not altogether clear, however, that Fuqua’s choices are all that intentional to believe he purposely wants this sort of uncomfortable genre-bending.

Who is Peter? A symbol, a resilient rebel, a family man, an action star this side of Rambo wandering the swamp and fighting with slave catchers and alligators? Fuqua believes Peter is all of the above. Unfortunately, in wearing these many hats, “Emancipation” becomes an exhaustive, vicious, and stylistically overcooked recounting of a man whose very visage led the abolitionist charge. “Emancipation” is a hollow piece of genre filmmaking that rarely answers, “Why this story and why now?”

Set in 1863, in the wake of Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation, the true story begins with a series of drone tracking shots that make their way through the wooded swamp, stretching over a cotton plantation whereby enslaved African Americans, who appear placed in by garish VFX, toil in the soil. In a shack, a doting Peter ( Will Smith ) caresses the slender foot of his wife Dodienne ( Charmaine Bingwa ) with water as their children surround them. They are God-fearing people who believe the lord will grant them strength and salvation against white folks who see them merely as chattel. Their faith, unfortunately, cannot hide them from the realities of this system: Two white men drag Peter from his family, causing him to pull the frame of the door from the walls in an attempt to stay with his loved ones. He has been sold to the Confederate Army as manual labor for building a railroad.

In a previous world, before slapping Chris Rock at last year’s Oscar ceremony, Smith must have imagined this as his Oscar moment. And the diligence to reach such acclaim is apparent, and sometimes too evident. For Smith, Peter is slightly different from the prototypical roles he plays. Smith tosses away his clean-cut look for a messy, unkempt, and scarred appearance. Never a master of accents (his infamous performance in “Concussion” says as much), Smith opts to go the route taken by British actors who alter their voice to an American tone; he lowers his voice an octave and adds a few necessary inflections. The result is a controlled sonic turn that flattens the emotional range of his speech. Still, Smith’s physical transformation can’t be wholly ignored. Peter is unafraid of looking white men in the eyes or standing up for his enslaved friends, even if it means death. The slightly hunched posture Smith walks with says that Peter is bent but never broken (an appearance that could carry additional weight if William N. Collage’s on-the-nose screenplay didn’t have Peter use that exact description to describe himself).

Peter’s resilient spirit soon catches the eye of notorious slave catcher Fassel ( Ben Foster ). Not content with allowing the menacing Fassel to portray his God complex, Collage’s script again makes the characterization obvious when Fassel tells Peter that he is his “God.” At every turn, you get the sense that “Emancipation” could easily be an intelligent interrogation of the role of religion in slavery. But Collage and Fuqua aren’t capable of moving past a surface-level examination of such fervent faith in relation to a system that makes one feel spiritually gripped with the notion of salvation. Instead, Fuqua speeds toward what he knows: action. Peter and a couple of other enslaved men break from the camp in a bid for freedom by traveling for five days through the treacherous swamps toward Lincoln’s army.

Peter’s escape takes up much of the film’s bloated run time as he traverses over hellish landscapes devoid of color, recalling the war-torn landscape of Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Ivan’s Childhood” and the apocalyptic flare of Barry Jenkins’ “ The Underground Railroad .” Unlike those works, frustratingly, “Emancipation” doesn’t use the trek to flesh out these characters fully. Despite Foster’s best efforts, Fassel remains a brooding, ferocious bigot who’s a pale imitation of Joel Edgerton’s humanist, multidimensional work in a similar role in Jenkins’ miniseries. Peter veers closely to how Kasi Lemmons rendered Harriet Tubman in “ Harriet ,” he sees visions from God and experiences divine assistance in his pursuit of freedom. We also witness his resourcefulness as he evades his hunters through his intelligent tactics. But we do not get any sense of personality. Apart from his unflinching devotion to God and his family, what makes Peter, Peter? Does he have a sense of humor? A fond memory with his wife or a personal foible? He speaks Creole. But other than that, he can only be described as nobly sweaty.

And the same might be said of the staid, unimaginative crafts: Too often, Fuqua and cinematographer Robert Richardson (“Once Upon a Time … In Hollywood”) mistake sweeping images for big emotions, as though a drone shot gliding over a desolate color-zapped field will break the cynical veil of a viewer already turned off by such bleak narratives. It’s especially grating because the pair hits that well more than a few times, causing the film to sag with visually unoriginal repetitiveness. The drudging score doesn’t add any further life to the proceedings either. Is the chase from enslavement toward freedom supposed to be inarticulately rendered, so unlived in, so clearly gruesome without the land ever becoming a real environment?

Peter eventually joins the army, discovering triumphs as a soldier akin to Edward Zwick’s “ Glory .” Fuqua composes epic battle sequences that lack the verve of a tightly choreographed tug-of-war between warring sides and chooses ostentatious explosions. “Emancipation” hurries toward a happy conclusion that somehow feels unearned in a film that requires the viewer to sit through two-plus hours of degradation to arrive at this moment of solace. The journey to get here doesn’t carry the necessary subversiveness or humanization. Fuqua’s film needs to either fully embrace the action components for a full Blaxploitation tilt or lean closer toward its prestige aims to work. “Emancipation” is too constrained to be freeing.

In theaters today. On Apple TV+ on December 9th.

Robert Daniels

Robert Daniels is an Associate Editor at RogerEbert.com. Based in Chicago, he is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association (CFCA) and Critics Choice Association (CCA) and regularly contributes to the New York Times , IndieWire , and Screen Daily . He has covered film festivals ranging from Cannes to Sundance to Toronto. He has also written for the Criterion Collection, the Los Angeles Times , and Rolling Stone about Black American pop culture and issues of representation.

Will Smith as Peter
Ben Foster as Jim Fassel
Charmaine Bingwa as Dodienne
Steven Ogg as Confederate Sergeant Howard
Gilbert Owuor as Gordon
Mustafa Shakir as Lt. Andrew Cailloux
Grant Harvey as Leeds
Ronnie Gene Blevins as Harrington
Jayson Warner Smith as Capt. John Lyons
Antoine Fuqua
Bill Collage
Conrad Buff IV
Marcelo Zarvos

Cinematographer

Robert Richardson

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Emancipation Reviews

Fuqua and Collage had the opportunity to give the man from the famous picture a voice. To show who Peter might have been as a person, and not only display the suffering he experienced. And it slipped through their grasp.

Full Review | Jul 21, 2024

[A]s an action, [Emancipation is] not half-bad... But looking at it in the context of a somehow burgeoning field of slave narratives, the lack of nuance feels not only lazy but exploitative.

Full Review | Oct 16, 2023

Emancipation strives to be the strong surprise of the year but doesn’t fully come together. Smith? Excellent might even be his best performance! Powerful imagery, great cinematography, but a one note story that I found to lack depth

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

The hollow Emancipation is a mismatch between director and subject.

Full Review | Mar 16, 2023

Its release was overshadowed by that Oscars slap , and that’s a shame. Those who fixated on the buzz rather than on the film missed out on a terrific and engaging bit of cinema that is arguably Fuqua’s most fully realized film since “Training Day.”

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 15, 2023

This visually stunning film from director Antoine Fuqua suffers from a weak script, poor characterization, and an overly earnest approach to the subject matter. For something so important, a sense of substance seems in short supply.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 11, 2023

There aren’t enough films depicting runaway slaves fighting off Southern racists on the way to freedom. So when that premise is wasted on a terrible movie, as it is in Will Smith’s Emancipation, it’s a great tragedy.

Full Review | Jan 6, 2023

Will Smith is persona non grata in Hollywood because he attacked Chris Rock at the Academy Awards earlier this year. Does that have anything to do with this movie? No. This is a good movie and Will Smith gives a fine performance in it.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jan 5, 2023

Will Smith gives Whipped Peter dignity in Emancipation in a flick focusing more on freedom from captivity mentally, physically and emotionally.

Full Review | Jan 1, 2023

This inspired-by-fact yarn is especially noteworthy for its borderline brilliant visual sense.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Dec 29, 2022

Director Antoine Fuqua provides Smith with an extremely physical and emotional role, the kind Oscar has salivated over in the past. However, Fuqua’s lack of a handle on pacing and artistic framing submarines Emancipation.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Dec 28, 2022

If this were an obstacle course, Smith would win hands down. But as an attempt to affectingly depict the horrors of slavery, it falters.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Dec 28, 2022

An emotionally hollow film about a man’s flight from slavery that's exploitative in the most unpleasant way.

Full Review | Dec 24, 2022

Antoine Fuqua has made a striking looking, feverishly taut survival thriller that occasionally delivers a grisly adrenaline rush similar to The Revenant or Apocalypto.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 21, 2022

This is a solidly decent film made with a brutally honest grimness, with strong performances and a highly stylised approach from Fuqua.

Full Review | Dec 20, 2022

Emancipation is a different type of historical slave movie but not different enough to really stand out and be interesting.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Dec 20, 2022

While the facts of the story and bold filmmaking style lend narrative weight, it strangely tips the film in the direction of Grand Guignol horror.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 19, 2022

More than a piece of history, shot in black and white, this film works as a thriller, which is also Fuqua's forte.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 19, 2022

This drama has good intentions in wanting to portray the realities of slavery, but those intentions are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of graphic violence.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 17, 2022

Compelling and often horrific...

Full Review | Dec 16, 2022

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Emancipation review: Will Smith is on the run in a ruthless slavery drama

Director Antoine Fuqua tilts true history into a brutal, broad-strokes action thriller elevated by his central star's performance.

What we know for sure about a man called "Whipped Peter" is as scant as a picture and a paragraph: He was enslaved on a Louisiana plantation and escaped; he somehow survived 40 treacherous miles of swamp and made it to a Union safehold in Baton Rouge, where a portrait of him stripped to the waist — his back a constellation of keloid scars incurred from a vicious whipping — became a galvanizing spark for the abolitionist movement.

That notorious photograph doesn't appear until deep into the second hour of Emancipation (streaming this Friday on AppleTV+), maybe because Peter's place in history is the thing the movie finds least interesting about him. Instead, director Antoine Fuqua reimagines him as the almost superhuman action hero of a harrowing and often baroquely violent revenge thriller: a bloodied but unbowed warrior battling a raft of savage beasts (alligators, water snakes, Confederates) to make his way homeward at any cost.

Will Smith , his cheekbones hollowed and eyes burning, plays Peter as a devoted family man and faithful Christian whose fury lies so close to the surface it seems like a minor miracle that he's managed to stay alive this far; he would rather take a terrible beating than allow even one small injustice to stand. But there's not much he can do when his owner dispatches him to a distant job laying train tracks, separating him from his wife Dodienne ( The Good Fight 's Charmaine Bingwa) and four children.

The railroad camp turns out to be a sort of murderous gulag, where enslaved workers are beaten and killed with a malice so casual and consistent it feels like nothing less than institutionalized sadism. There are no good men here, only more or less merciful deaths, supervised by a sociopathic overseer with a honeyed Southern drawl called Fassel ( Ben Foster ) — the kind of full-tilt villain who likes to squint malevolently and smoke his pipe while telling his charges things like "I'm your God — you walk the Earth because I let you."

Smith's Peter swiftly becomes Fassel's main antagonist, a natural leader he can't control, and one he chases down with a doggedness that seems deeply personal (if not straight-up pathological) once he manages to escape the camp and find a way into the swamp. That's where the natural world, with its many fanged and four-legged hazards, comes in, and Fuqua ( The Guilty , Training Day ) hurtles through Peter's swamp-survival narrative with an urgency that feels both stripped-down and operatic, framing it all via grand God's-eye vistas and excruciating closeups stripped almost completely of color, like a tinted old-time daguerreotype.

Whether moviegoers need more punishing stories of Black pain in 2022 has become the subject of much debate; the director of Till , released last month, deliberately chose not to show the monstrous violence visited on 14-year-old Emmett Till, focusing instead only on the lead-up to his 1955 lynching and its aftermath. Fuqua clearly doesn't belong to that school, and it's a testament to Smith's innate stardom that he's able to so thoroughly inhabit a role drawn almost entirely in bold outlines. (Whether you can suspend thoughts of the actor's own ideas of vengeance while watching him do it, of course, lies with the viewer.) His conviction carries Emancipation a long way, elevating what is essentially a B movie to the realm of something better than its outsize premise: a blunt instrument, maybe, but a brutally affecting one too. Grade: B

Emancipation

A runaway slave forges through the swamps of Louisiana on a tortuous journey to escape plantation owners that nearly killed him. A runaway slave forges through the swamps of Louisiana on a tortuous journey to escape plantation owners that nearly killed him. A runaway slave forges through the swamps of Louisiana on a tortuous journey to escape plantation owners that nearly killed him.

Antoine Fuqua
Bill Collage
Charmaine Bingwa
155 User reviews
92 Critic reviews
53 Metascore
3 wins & 10 nominations

Top cast 93

Lt. Andrew Cailloux

Major G. Halstead

General William Dwight

Mike Hurley

Little Peter
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Trivia At the Siege of Port Hudson, there were four different regiments of US Colored Troops: 1st Louisiana Native Guards (73rd USCT), 3rd Louisiana Native Guards (75th USCT), 4th Louisiana Native Guards (76th USCT), and the 1st Louisiana Engineers (later split into the 95th and 97th USCT). Of these regiments the only one that had any sergeant with the name of either "Peter" or "Gordon" was the 1st Louisiana Engineers. There were three: Peter Jones of company M, who deserted June 19, 1863; William Gordon of company A, who died of scurvy Sept 11, 1864; and Peter Simms of company I, who completed his 3-year enlistment and mustered out of service with the 97th USCT on April 6, 1866 as part of the occupation force in Mobile, Alabama. As a coincidence, there were also three "Will Smiths" in the 97th USCT; one of them enlisted in April of 1863 and would also rise to the rank of sergeant.
Goofs The 1st Louisiana Native Guard's May 27, 1863, assault on Port Hudson did not succeed as portrayed in the film. The soldiers did not even make it into the Confederate trenches to engage enemy soldiers in hand-to-hand combat. Instead the regiment retreated after Andre Cailloux's death. Port Hudson did not surrender the morning after the assault as shown in the film. Instead the siege lasted until July 9, 1863.
Connections Featured in Double Toasted: EMANCIPATION MOVIE REVIEW (2022)

User reviews 155

Dec 8, 2022
How long is Emancipation? Powered by Alexa
December 9, 2022 (United States)
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Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site, St. Francisville, Louisiana, USA
CAA Media Finance
Escape Artists
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$120,000,000 (estimated)

Technical specs

Runtime 2 hours 12 minutes
Black and White

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‘Emancipation’ Review: Will Smith’s Brutal Slavery Drama Is Brought Down by Exhausting Choices

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Over a decade ago, Will Smith famously turned down the title role in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained , stating that “I wanted to make that movie so badly, but I felt the only way was, it had to be a love story, not a vengeance story.” With Antoine Fuqua ’s Emancipation , Smith gets a bit closer to this vision, in this story based on the life of the escaped slave Gordon, also known as “Whipped Peter.” Smith plays Peter, a slave who is separated from his wife Dodienne ( Charmaine Bingwa ) and children and forced to work on the railroad. When Peter hears that Abraham Lincoln has freed the slaves, and that Lincoln’s army is nearby in Baton Rouge, Peter and a handful of other slaves attempt to escape, running through the Louisiana swamp as they try to make their way to freedom. Making this journey even more difficult is Fassel ( Ben Foster ), who hunts runaway slaves with his pack of dogs, a vicious reminder of the horrific cruelty that was dispensed during this period. Peter fights to get to Lincoln’s men not only for his own freedom, but so that he can eventually get his family to freedom as well.

“Whipped Peter” was eventually known for a picture that was circulated in 1863, which showed Peter’s back covered in lashes, putting a face to the atrocities committed during this period. Through Emancipation , Fuqua almost wants to make the audience feel each of these scars. Fuqua often soars over slaves working or battles being fought, showing the full scale of this situation, and bringing to mind battle sequences from Saving Private Ryan . Yet with the slavery scenes, this isn’t some random occurrence, this is everyday terrors that are becoming more and more commonplace. It’s an admirable attempt to present the nightmares that were happening throughout our country during this period.

Fuqua works with cinematographer Robert Richardson (who also was Oscar-nominated for his work on Django Unchained ), who shoots the film in a bleak, muted black-and-white, which is only occasionally punctuated by the dull red of fires burning or blood spilling. Much like Luc Montpellier ’s recent work in Women Talking , this approach seems to be as a way to show just how deadened the world around our characters has become, how even when great joy is found, the world has already been diminished too much for this to make a difference.

Will Smith and Ben Foster in Emancipation

RELATED: Will Smith Expects the Oscar Slap to Affect ‘Emancipation’s Reception

It’s also hard not to admire Smith’s performance here, his first role since winning the Oscar for King Richard (and, of course, his first role since everything else that happened at that Academy Awards). For an actor that has been so reliant on his charisma in many of his roles, Emancipation requires Smith to be silent and still, full of anger that is ready to burst, but with a faith that helps move him away from this righteous rage. Smith is given a few moments that clearly feel like the Big Oscar Montage Moment, but he’s at his best when he’s quietly reacting to his situation and surroundings.

But for all its intentions and unusual choices, Emancipation suffocates under a wooden script full of banality, a director who doesn’t know how to keep the momentum of this story going, and cliches that border on parody. Emancipation is a story that requires a certain amount of care and presentation that Fuqua just doesn’t have. While Fuqua—who has mostly worked in action over the last decade with films like The Equalizer and Infinite —does know how to make the more action-oriented scenes captivating, he struggles to make this story equally as compelling in the quieter moments.

Similarly, the screenplay from Bill Collage (who has written films as varied as the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen-starring New York Minute and Assassin’s Creed ), is clunky and awkward throughout. Thankfully, Smith’s performance can often save lines that sound hackneyed and cliché from the other films we’ve seen of this ilk before. Structurally, Emancipation also feels awkward, as if the many sequences within the swamp could be swapped out with any other scene, with little consequence, with the rare scene of Peter’s family to remind the audience what he’s fighting for. Even Richardson’s cinematography feels like a poor choice, as if it's dulling Collage’s already borderline dull script.

This is a compelling story because of the truth behind it, and the reality of what Peter fought for, not because of how the filmmakers are telling this story. It seems clear that Fuqua and Collage want to spotlight the inhumanity that existed in this lawless land on its way out, and the spirit, strength, and faith that Peter and people like Peter latched onto in order to make it through this living hell. Even though the brutality is seemingly never-ending, we never dull to the constant barrage of pain—both physically and emotionally. Yet when Fuqua and Collage aren’t focusing on the cruelty of this world, the film stops dead, lumbering through the motions, complete with derivative choices, characters, and dialogue. Emancipation , unfortunately, always seems like it’s just a few alterations away from being a fascinating film about this monstrous period in American history.

Emancipation opens in select theaters on December 2, and will be available to stream on Apple TV+ starting on December 9.

Movie Reviews
Antoine Fuqua

Review: ‘Emancipation,’ with Will Smith, struggles to do its real-life survival story justice

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In March 1863, two months after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, a Black man known as Peter (other accounts name him as Gordon) escaped a Louisiana plantation, endured 10 days in alligator-infested marshes and found his way to Baton Rouge, where he received medical attention and soon enlisted in the Union Army. His survival alone is an astonishing story, but what immortalized him was a photograph of the raised welts and scars crisscrossing his back, brutal evidence of a lifetime of whippings. The widely circulated image, variably referred to as “Whipped Peter” or “The Scourged Back,” is credited with fueling the abolitionist movement at a crucial Civil War midpoint, igniting the outrage of Northerners who had never seen the horrors of Southern slavery up close.

Director Antoine Fuqua and his star, Will Smith, reenact the shooting of that photograph toward the end of “Emancipation,” their swampy, sloggy action-movie treatment of Peter’s journey. Fuqua doesn’t show us the lashings that produced those scars, leaving them to the imagination of an audience presumably acquainted with, and likely exhausted by, the many grueling depictions of racist violence in movies and TV series. The pointedly titled “Emancipation” means to focus on acts of physical and spiritual defiance, and it dramatizes the apparatus of chattel slavery primarily to show that apparatus being subverted or overthrown. Here, even a cotton gin can be repurposed as an instrument of resistance, albeit resistance of an especially cruel and painful kind.

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Little is known about the details of Peter’s life, which serves the purposes of William N. Collage’s narrowly focused screenplay just fine. We first see Peter (Smith) kneeling in prayer just before he is separated from his family, thrown into a cage and transported from the plantation to a labor camp, where he and other male prisoners are forced to lay railroad track. The heat is unendurable, the work exhausting and deadly. But despite the scars on his back and the metal collar around his neck, Peter remains more alert and hopeful than the others. He’s overheard whispers that Lincoln has declared all enslaved people free and that Union troops have made it to Baton Rouge, a blessing from a God he fervently believes in.

Will Smith and Ben Foster in the movie "Emancipation."

“Faith without works is dead,” a preacher intones early on, and Peter gives that Scripture its most righteously violent interpretation. Seizing his opportunity along with a shovel, he metes out some well-earned justice and flees into the bayou with three other men — Gordon (Gilbert Owuor), Tomas (Jabbar Lewis) and John (Michael Luwoye) — with whom he quickly parts ways, the better to improve their individual chances of finding their way to Baton Rouge and the Union troops stationed there. But Peter doesn’t just have to outrun his pursuers, who are led by the broodingly sadistic Fassel (Ben Foster) and armed with guns and bloodhounds. Over the course of his long, arduous journey he must also endure hunger and thirst, alligators and mosquitoes, sweltering heat and complicit plantation owners. (“Runner!” a young white girl screams, chillingly, when she spies Peter racing past.)

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It’s easy enough to see what drew Smith to the role of a man who became a vivid icon of suffering and resilience. He has a fondness for dramatic physical transformations and tricky accents (this version of Peter is Haitian-born), and here he obscures his handsome features, if not his natural charm, with a clenched underbite and wrinkled, sun-splotched skin. Pain and self-sacrifice come all too easily to Smith’s characters, as evidenced by various tortured psychodramas running the qualitative gamut from “Hancock” to “Seven Pounds.” And I suspect, given the actor’s public declarations of faith, that he felt some affinity for a character who wears his Christianity on his ragged sleeve, prays before consuming a precious meal of honey and at one point turns a cross necklace into a weapon.

Smith gives the solid, easily sympathetic, sometimes rousing performance you’d expect, even if what’s called for here is less a nuanced feat of acting than a forceful display of sweat, blood and endurance. And “Emancipation,” like more than a few cinematic endurance tests, labors hard to elevate a bloody, barbaric spectacle into an inspiring, high-minded one. Peter’s journey is a gantlet of horrors, barely relieved by moments of grace and respite, but Fuqua and his editor, Conrad Buff, try to imply more than they show, cutting around or cutting away from the ghastly images of Peter’s friends being mauled or decapitated. The director seems vaguely torn between his usual flair for bone-crunching violence ( “The Equalizer” movies , “Olympus Has Fallen” ) and the desire to forge something more artful and historically resonant from Peter’s experience.

Will Smith, Michael Luwoye and Gilbert Owuor in the movie "Emancipation."

That confusion is reflected in Robert Richardson’s stylized black-and-white cinematography, which is inflected with muted washes of color (a bit of greenery here, a flicker of orange flame there). The mostly monochrome palette effectively evokes a distant era; for better or worse, it also makes the violence, including some blood-on-the-leaves imagery, easier to process. It’s not hard to get swept up in Richardson’s muscular camera moves — particularly his sweeping aerial views of the swamp and, later, a smoke-choked battlefield — or to admire the meticulously mud-caked exteriors of Naomi Shohan’s production design. “Emancipation” seeks to capture a panoramic snapshot of a rattled Confederacy nearing its final days, providing what the production notes describe as “an immersive, 360-degree experience.”

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The director opens up about the brutal process of depicting an enslaved man on the run — and the controversy that threatens to overshadow his movie.

Nov. 17, 2022

But in terms of psychology and character, a 360-degree experience is actually the opposite of immersive, and it’s at odds with the fleet, propulsive survival thriller Fuqua seems to be trying to make. The more the movie pulls away from Peter’s perspective, the more it undercuts its own tension. And even with a physically impressive production at his disposal, Fuqua’s filmmaking instincts are clumsy and prone to cliché. Every flourish — a closeup of horses’ hooves pounding the mud, an action scene rendered in partial slow-motion, a sudden gasp as Peter’s wife, Dodienne (Charmaine Bingwa), awakens from a premonitory nightmare — suggests a filmmaker constrained by the visual grammar of the Hollywood action flick. (The musical grammar, too, judging by Marcelo Zarvos’ unsubtly wielded score.)

If “Emancipation” were nothing more (or less) than that action flick — leaner, meaner, less solemn, less monochrome — it would probably be a better, more honest movie. Certainly I’d rather watch Smith’s Peter go a few more rounds with an alligator, as he does in a scene that briefly jolts the movie to life, than listen to another minute of, say, Fassel’s hoary campfire monologue, with its less-than-revelatory peek into the diseased white-supremacist mind. Foster, so often cast as the villain, doesn’t go as showily over-the-top as he has in the past, but that’s scant consolation. His presence in this role alone is emblematic of the movie’s obviousness.

I suppose it’s no more obvious than Smith’s casting as the persecuted, persevering hero, but that’s par for the Hollywood course. Pricey historical dramas like “Emancipation” — better ones, worse ones — have long depended on stars to leverage their prestige ambitions and sell their weighty subject matter to a largely indifferent public. The viability of Smith’s star persona has of course been cast into doubt since this particular project was set in motion, which is why the much-analyzed events of Oscar night 2022 have generated so much anxiety around their likely impact on the movie’s release, box office potential and (God forbid) Oscar prospects.

What any of that has to do, in the end, with the life of an enslaved man whose courage profoundly shaped the course of racial justice — or the heroism of the Black soldiers who fought for a nation that had done nothing to deserve their loyalty — is well worth wondering. But the answers are pretty dispiriting. “Emancipation” is hardly the first or last picture to be overshadowed by the industry that produced it, or to fall short of the history that inspired it.

‘Emancipation’

Rated: R, for strong racial violence, disturbing images and language Running time: 2 hours, 12 minutes Playing: Starts Dec. 2 at Regal L.A. Live and Cinemark Baldwin Hills Crenshaw and XD; starts streaming Dec. 9 on Apple+

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Emancipation review: fuqua's latest historical drama is gorgeous but underbaked.

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It feels as if there’s always a new story to tell about slavery. That’s partly because these stories have been buried in history for so long. The Equalizer director Antoine Fuqua and Academy Award winner Will Smith partner together to bring the infamous story of Gordon’s “scourged back” photo to the big screen. The picture was one of the most circulated of the abolitionist movement during the American Civil War to showcase the atrocities of slavery to nonbelievers. Written by William N. Collage and directed by Fuqua, the story capture’s one man’s wit and determination for freedom. And while Emancipation contains beautiful cinematography amidst brutalities of oppression, it conveys very little about the man who should easily inspire the world.

Will Smith stars as Peter (named Gordon in real life), a former slave who escapes a Louisiana plantation to join the Union Army to fight for his freedom. Relying heavily on his wits, his deep love to be reunited with his family, and sincere faith in God, Peter endures the harsh swamps to evade the cold-blooded hunters nearing his path. The film is inspired by the 1863 photographs of "Whipped Peter," taken during a Union Army medical examination, that first appeared in Harper's Weekly . The image, frequently referred to as "The Scourged Back," shows Peter’s bare back thoroughly scarred by a whipping delivered by his enslavers, which ultimately contributed to the growing opposition to slavery during the Civil War.

Related: Emancipation Trailer: First Look At Will Smith's Emotional Slavery Drama

Fuqua’s latest film captures Peter’s relentless pursuit of freedom and desire to be reunited with his beloved family. Throughout his journey, Fuqua doesn’t shy away from incorporating horrifying imageries of slavery (the film is satiated with decapitated heads, mutilated limbs, and piles of bodies), but they never become too difficult to watch or fall into the torture porn category. Perhaps in this day and age, viewers are used to this type of violence depicted onscreen, so it could be the desensitization factor coming into play. However, the better explanation is simply because Fuqua directs a well-made film that seizes the opportunity to display the full truth.

While Emancipation boasts strong technical achievements, like Fuqua’s direction and Robert Richardson’s cinematography, there are plenty of unfortunate issues. Though it’s depicted as a historical drama, there are too many added elements of tired Hollywood tropes that make the film feel like a dishonest interpretation of such occurrences. A one-on-one battle with an alligator, leading a victorious battle with seasoned soldiers as a rookie are examples of where the film takes liberties to dramatize. And as a result of not focusing on the man — the former slave whose desperation to survive and faith in God carried the weight of his burdens and propelled him to victory — audiences are left with scenes that will make one question the sincerity of the facts.

For a well-shot film that attempts to exemplify the importance of the man whose photo of his scourged back helped propel forward the abolitionist movement, it struggles to do so significantly. Additionally, the material isn't adequate for the talent surrounding the project. Charmaine Bingwa, for example, plays Peter’s wife Dodienne. Her role is simply to exist as Peter’s inspiration for survival, and she is given very little else to do otherwise. Smith’s performance feels standard, with no true breakout moments to support the heaviness of the film’s content. Yet, it's good enough to not divert from the brutality of the film’s setting, which is the slavery and the pursuit of freedom.

Ultimately, Emancipation never rises to a level of greatness of which it is capable. There are moments that tend to creep into that territory, such as the war scenes. However, as a whole, it is underbaked. Fuqua’s feature is certainly well-made with an excellent score to accompany the beautifully-edited action sequences. But from a narrative standpoint, it barely scratches the surface of the real Gordon’s importance in history. And unfortunately, the film doesn’t add anything new to the genre even when the very photo that inspired it is an important historical staple.

Next: Violent Night Review: Wirkola’s Gory Christmas Flick Is Wildly Entertaining

Emancipation released in limited theaters December 2 and will be available to stream on AppleTV+ December 9. The film is 132 minutes long and rated R for disturbing images, strong racial violence, and language.

Emancipation

Based on the true story of a man named Gordon in the 1860s, Emancipation tells the tale of an enslaved person named Peter, played by Will Smith, who escapes from a Louisiana plantation. The film is an action/thriller that shows Peter's journey as he tries to avoid murderous hunters that will stop at nothing to catch him. Finally, Peter escaped to the North and joined the Union Army to stop the slave trade in the south and fight for true emancipation. The true story of Gordon featured the famous photographs of Peter's whipped back, which became a central focal point for strengthening the abolitionist movement of the time.

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Anna kendrick recalls how ‘pitch perfect’ costar brittany snow’s pep talk helped her get ready to direct her first movie, ‘emancipation’ review: peeling back the levels to the story of will smith’s “whipped peter”.

By Valerie Complex

Valerie Complex

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While working, Peter overhears Confederate soldiers Leeds (Grant Harvey) and Howard (Steven Ogg) having a conversation about how President Abraham Lincoln has freed the slaves and that the Union Army is located in Baton Rouge. Upon hearing this news, he and the other enslaved discuss escape, but don’t have a plan for how to do it. However, when the opportunity arises, Peter and the others go running for their lives, with hunter Jim Fassel ( Ben Foster ) on their trail. Once they reach the swamps, they find that many other dangers await them besides a bullet.

RELATED: ‘Emancipation’ Trailer: Will Smith Flees Brutal Enslavers In Antoine Fuqua’s Harrowing Drama

Antoine Fuqua consistently delivers an air of epicness as a director, and he captures Peter’s gaze as he traverses the swamps on his journey to Baton Rouge. However, that dynamic movement featured in many of Fuqua’s films isn’t a part of Emancipation . The color-graded hues sit somewhere between black, white and gray, but why wasn’t the full color spectrum utilized? Probably to protect the audience from the nonstop blood and gore projected onscreen throughout its 2-hour, 12-minute runtime.

Smith’s and Foster’s performances are strong and sincere; they recite their lines with conviction and are committed to their character goals. However, these are characters that have been seen time and time again in other films about slavery in America.

One highlight of Emancipation is the sound design. It’s so sharp, especially in the scenes where Peter travels through the swamps. You can hear insects directly buzzing past your ear and the squishing of mud under Peter’s feet. Everything is done with intentionality and specificity. The sound goes right through your bones and adds to the “thriller” aspect of the film (if you can call this type of film a thriller).

There is an ongoing debate about whether films like this are “trauma porn,” or unnecessary in an age where the Black people yearn for modern stories of other types of heroics. There are valid arguments on both sides: Do these types of films get greenlighted more often in Hollywood than any other films about the Black experience? The violent savagery is a part of Black American history that should be recalled and recognized, right?

With Collage penning the script, it adds another layer of nuance to an already complicated conversation that digs up further questions about how these stories are told, and who is telling them. Would it have been a different experience if Collage were Black? Hard to say. One thing the script doesn’t do is create an unnecessary white-savior narrative. Thank goodness that was left out of this because I was dealing with enough based on the visuals.

The thought of walking out crossed my mind several times. Not because the film wasn’t up to par, but seeing so much Black death onscreen is exhausting and painful, and there is only so much I can take — even if the ending of a film is hopeful. Barry Jenkins’ The Underground Railroad limited series is ruthless in execution but had the intuition to approach the history in a unique way that made it worth watching. What are other films doing that is beyond the generic? Is there something new to expect from what the audience is going to see? Is there anything else besides seeing relentless violence? The story of “Whipped Peter” and the impact he had on the culture of war and American slavery live on to this day, but there has to be another way to tell these stories.

There has to be another way.

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Summary Peter (Will Smith) escapes from slavery, relying on his wits and unwavering faith to evade cold-blooded hunters and the unforgiving swamps of Louisiana on his quest to reunite with his family. The film is inspired by the 1863 photos of “Whipped Peter,” taken during a Union Army medical examination, that first appeared in Harper’s Weekly ... Read More

Directed By : Antoine Fuqua

Written By : Bill Collage

Emancipation

Charmaine Bingwa

Gilbert owuor, ronnie gene blevins, aaron moten, jabbar lewis, michael luwoye, grant harvey, mustafa shakir, lt. andrew cailloux, paul ben-victor, major g. halstead, david denman, general william dwight, jesse c. boyd, mike hurley, imani pullum, jeremiah friedlander, jordyn mcintosh, landon chase dubois, little peter, austin alexander, britton webb, critic reviews.

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Emancipation Review

09 Dec 2022

Emancipation

Slavery is a near-impossible subject matter to get right on screen. To sugar-coat it is to effectively deny history; to depict it simply as it was, warts and all, would result in a stomach-churning viewing experience. Modern audiences already understand that slavery is immoral, so it can run the risk of feeling self-flattering for white audiences, while Black audiences might find it just traumatic. It is a delicate, sensitive road to tread, and only a few filmmakers — such as Barry Jenkins ( The Underground Railroad ) or Steve McQueen ( 12 Years A Slave ) — have offered new insight into one of history’s most violent, shameful chapters.

With Emancipation , Antoine Fuqua boldly attempts a new take on that history, looking to tell the story of ‘Whipped Peter’, a real-life slave who became famous worldwide when his mutilated, heavily whipped back was photographed in the 19th century, and quickly became iconic, a galvanising symbol for the abolitionist movement. This is essentially a two-hour adaptation of a photograph, then, and William N. Collage’s script inevitably must take liberties with Peter’s story, the details of which are scarce. But Collage and Fuqua’s guiding principle — as that title suggests — is that this is a story of freedom: how one man escaped bondage, on his own terms, through sheer will and perseverance.

It’s a noble goal. But in order to set the scene, the filmmakers feel obliged to first give us the same horrific imagery common with nearly every film of this kind. So we must endure sequences of whipping, deathly screaming, hot-iron branding, cotton-picking in the midday heat, racial slurs spat from slave-masters, and worse — and that’s just in the first ten minutes. It’s so bluntly brutal as to be stripped of meaning.

What rescues the first act from simply seeming like cruelty-by-numbers is Will Smith . The temptation for Smith might have been to go big and attention-seeking; it’s admirable that he instead retreats inwards, a sea-swell of emotions barely cresting above an ever-resilient face. He can easily manage showy, muscular acting, but it’s in the moments of quiet — such as the silent prayer offered while rolling a corpse into a mass grave — that Smith truly impresses.

Fuqua finds thick tension and danger in every corner.

In both his face and physicality, Smith convinces as a man who could survive extreme hardship and sustain a sense of self. When Peter eventually rebels, having heard rumours of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the film switches gears into a chase thriller, a cat-and-mouse game between Peter and the ruthless tracker Fassel (Ben Foster, excellent). This becomes the bread-and-butter of the piece, and while it still feels rather one-note — there are only so many ways to show misery, after all — Fuqua finds thick tension and danger in every corner. Everything, from alligators to small, rich children could be a threat.

The film is, undeniably, singular and sometimes overly simplistic in its approach. Fuqua, like Tony Scott or Zack Snyder , is primarily a visual storyteller, led more by his heart than his head, and there is possibly a version of this story from another director that could have been more probing, more insightful. (There is also, ideally, one that is less desaturated, the filmmakers opting for a washed-out sepia colour grade that aims for ‘historical tea stain’ but just looks a bit drab.)

Only in the final act does the film really hit its stride, when Peter stops running and seeks his freedom through military service in the American Civil War. This epic wartime closer — a vast, bloody battlefield, in which a Black US regiment fight for their very freedom — feels like a register Fuqua is most comfortable with, and while it’s no less relentlessly violent, it at least offers the nuanced understanding that escaping a master was only the beginning of the struggle, ending on a note of Braveheart -ian triumph. It’s only a shame, really, that it had to begin with such unrelenting inhumanity.

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It’s no secret that Smith turned down the lead role in “Django Unchained.” Here, he and Fuqua approach the subject of slavery with the same care Hollywood typically brings to Holocaust stories. In “Emancipation,” there’s an educational element to the experience, and the tone seems appropriately sober. But the dramatic engine is that of a lean, mean manhunt movie.

Infamous as the photo of Peter may be, precious little is known about the man it depicts (even his name appears to be a source of confusion in some accounts). This gives Fuqua and screenwriter William N. Collage license to fill in what’s been lost to history with elements that scholars do know about other slaves. For example, in the movie, instead of escaping from a Louisiana plantation — as the real-life Peter reportedly did — the character is torn away from that life, which he shares with his wife Dodienne (Charmaine Bingwa) and kids, and forced to work on a Confederate railroad.

At the railroad work camp, Fuqua shows Peter and the other slaves forced to walk in chains, stored in wooden pens and served food not fit for human consumption. They toil alongside Confederate deserters, who are also seen as a flight risk — and severely punished when they try to run. One moment, Peter’s told to lower his eyes; the next, he’s reprimanded for not looking up when commanded. In the background, a soldier executes one of his fellow laborers. When another collapses at Peter’s feet, he’s ordered to carry the corpse to a mass grave and shovel lime over the bodies.

By this time, we’ve seen enough to take Fuqua’s point: Whatever you’ve heard about slavery can’t compare to witnessing it. For many, until they’ve seen the brutality for themselves, slavery remains an abstract concept — something taught in schools but not fully processed. “Emancipation” corrects that, putting searing images to what Peter and millions of other enslaved people endured. But it is also an adventure-style survival saga, and on that level, the movie seems reluctant to entertain at times, despite a host of B-movie contrivances.

From “Training Day” to “The Magnificent Seven,” Fuqua has given great actors larger-than-life characters to sink their teeth into, but this project calls for a different strategy. Instead of going big, Smith (fresh off his Oscar win, but still reeling from the Slap) and Foster approach their roles with a less-is-more attitude. As a result, both Peter — who overhears news of the Emancipation Proclamation and sets out for Baton Rouge, where the Union Army has taken the port — and hot-on-the-trail Fassel feel realistic, but oddly lacking in dimension.

At the top, “Emancipation” reminds audiences that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves in “the rebellious states” on Jan. 1, 1863. The Civil War had been underway for almost two years by that point, and his declaration did nothing for enslaved people in the Union or border states. But it marked the beginning of the end of this abhorrent institution.

Fuqua tells the story of one man who didn’t wait for Lincoln’s Army to reach him before claiming his own freedom — a man who, though he desperately wanted to be reunited with his wife and children, was willing to don a uniform and fight so that they might be emancipated as well. (While Peter gets by on his wits, Dodienne remains stuck on the plantation. Bingwa brings quiet strength to those scenes, culminating in an awful sacrifice.) This family dynamic, plus moments of prayer, are likely the screenwriter’s invention. But it’s true that Peter fought in several battles, which explains the film’s long last stretch: Even after Peter wrestles an alligator, outwits Fassel’s tracking dogs (by masking his scent with fresh onions) and rescues a Black child from a burning building, “Emancipation” still has another half-hour to go.

It’s stunning to watch, but nothing compared with the Civil War sequence that caps the film. Narratively, this protracted finale stops Peter’s mission cold in its tracks: How will he reach Dodienne if he dies on the front? But philosophically, it makes an all-important statement: For Peter, personal freedom was only the beginning. This hero — rendered immortal by that photo but representative of thousands forgotten by history — was committed to putting an end to the system that had brutalized him so. When Smith finally bares the character’s back for the camera, most of us know what to expect, but that doesn’t mean we’re prepared for the sight. “Emancipation” challenges us to look again, at that constellation of lashes, but also at every other blow against human dignity the film depicts.

Reviewed at Rodeo Screening Room, Los Angeles, Nov. 28, 2022. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 132 MIN.

Production: An Apple TV+ release of an Apple Original Films presentation of a Westbrook Studios production, in association with McFarland Entertainment, Escape Artists. Producers: Will Smith, Jon Mone, Joey McFarland, Todd Black. Executive producers: Chris Brigham, Antoine Fuqua, James Lassiter, Heather Washington, Cliff Roberts, Glen Basner, Scott Greenberg.
Crew: Director: Antoine Fuqua. Screenplay: William N. Collage. Camera: Robert Richardson. Editor: Conrad Buff. Music: Marcelo Zarvos.
With: Will Smith, Ben Foster, Charmaine Bingwa, Gilbert Owuor, Mustafa Shakir, Steven Ogg, Grant Harvey, Ronnie Gene Bivens, Jayson Warner Smith, Jabbar Lewis, Michael Luwoye, Aaron Moten, Imani Pullum. (English, French dialogue)

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‘Emancipation’ a decent action film that could have been so much more

Will smith sticks to movie star mode as a family man dodging hunters, bullets, a gator and a snake while fleeing slavery..

After escaping from slavery, Peter (Will Smith, left) is pursued by the relentless Fassel (Ben Foster) in “Emancipation.”

We reach full overkill in the historical action epic “Emancipation” when an alligator rises up and pulls Will Smith’s Peter into the swamp, igniting a monumental battle in which Peter uses a small knife to stab the alligator again and again and again, ultimately killing the great beast and living to fight another day.

At that point, it becomes clear director Antoine Fuqua, screenwriter William N. Collage and Smith are more interested in delivering a thriller that plays like an 1863 version of “The Fugitive” than in delving too deep into the particulars of the real-life man who became a worldwide symbol of the horrors of slavery when photos of the monstrous keloid scarring of his back from repeated whippings were circulated around the world.

Although “Emancipation” contains certain basic elements from the real-life Peter’s story, including his escape, his use of onions to throw off the bloodhounds chasing him and his eventual enlistment in the Union Army, the great majority of the film is devoted to Peter battling the unforgiving swamps and forestlands, fending off the aforementioned alligator as well as a snake, dodging bullets, hiding in a tree trunk, coming up with ingenious ways to find food and water — and trying to say one step ahead of the relentless slave hunter (Ben Foster), who comes across as more determined than Lt. Gerard and more obsessed than Javert from “Les Mis.” It’s a well-made film with some admittedly exciting action sequences, but even after 2 hours and 12 minutes, it feels as we’ve just skimmed the surface of this important piece of American history.

With director Fuqua (“Training Day,” “The Equalizer”) and cinematographer Robert Richardson employing a desaturated technique that veers close to black-and-white, with occasional, attention-getting pops of color, e.g., drops of blood falling on a leaf, or yellow flames licking a plantation from every side, “Emancipation” begins with Peter, his wife Dodienne (Charmaine Bingwa in a moving performance) and their children huddled in prayer. With Peter and his wife occasionally speaking in their native Haitian French Creole language, it’s immediately established Peter is a man of great faith (his belief in God remains unwavering, no matter what level of hell he endures while on Earth) and Peter and Dodienne have an abiding love for one another and for their children. They are a beautiful family trapped in the ugliest, most horrific of circumstances — and it somehow gets even worse when Peter is separated from his family and put to work in a slave encampment, building a railroad for the Confederate Army.

Time and again, Peter is subjected to brutal beatings and inhumane abuse by a series of snarling, drooling animals, e.g., Steven Ogg’s Sgt. Howard, who is itching for an excuse to put a bullet in Peter’s head. On the sidelines lurks the most efficiently ruthless, cunning and racist beast of them all; Ben Foster’s Fassel, who calmly smokes a small pipe while tending to his huge bloodhounds and telling Peter the only God in Peter’s life is Fassel himself. When Peter takes the opportunity to escape, Fassel can’t contain his enthusiasm as he rounds up his men and his dogs. This is what Fassel lives for — the chase, and the torture, and the kill. (Foster is a great actor and he is given one memorable speech in which Fassel tells a chilling story from his youth, but other than that, it’s a one-dimensional role. Fassel is simply a hate machine pursuing Peter.)

With an abundance of overhead, drone-type shots tracking the action, Peter relies on his intelligence, his survival instincts and his faith as he slogs through swamps, climbs trees, hides underwater and employs various clever techniques to throw Fassel and his men and those unrelenting dogs off his tracks, all in the name of somehow making it to a Union Army camp in Baton Rouge, finding his freedom and reuniting with his family. (Peter often says the name “Lincoln” as a kind of mantra, as if the president will be there to greet him when he arrives.)

We occasionally catch up with Dodienne and the children, and there are a few moments when Peter has prayer-like visions of reuniting with his family, but “Emancipation” is mostly about Peter’s incredible resolve and fortitude, as he narrowly escapes what appears to be certain death more than once and indeed does make it to that Union camp, with the great assistance of the all-Black 1st Louisiana Native Guard. Even then, though, we remain in action-film mode, with Smith delivering more of a big, Movie Star performance than a grounded work of acting. It seems like only a matter of days before Peter has recovered from multiple serious injuries and, while only a newly inducted private, takes a major role in a key battle that could swing the fate of the South. (Cue the shot of Will Smith roaring as the smoke clears and he leads the charge into the thick of battle.)

Despite the undeniable importance of this story and the obvious passion of those involved in telling it, “Emancipation” is more than anything a relatively standard-issue, period-piece action film — and that’s a shame, because we see glimpses of how it could have been something much more than that.

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‘Emancipation’ Review: Will Smith in a Brutal Journey

The actor stars in this Civil War-era drama directed by Antoine Fuqua and inspired by a shocking photograph of an enslaved man.

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Will Smith in a dirty shirt leaning against a wooden fence with a bearded Ben Foster behind it.

By Manohla Dargis

For much of the period drama “Emancipation,” the promise of its title seems cruelly out of reach. In 1863, freedom seems near-impossible for the enslaved Black Americans in the Old South, whether they’re working on its plantations or running through its swamps. That promise, though, is about all that this movie’s resilient hero has during a relentless, brutal, grim journey that takes him across a hellscape filled with terror and suffering.

There are no benevolent white belles and polite gentlemen in “Emancipation,” no trace of the grotesque plantation fantasies so beloved by old Hollywood. That’s to the movie’s point and purpose, as it sets out to show the barbaric price that slavery exacts on human beings, both individually and collectively. In this respect, the movie functions as a necessary corrective to the familiar, big-screen fictions about the American slave trade even as — in its sweep and narrative beats, in its emphasis on a heroic individual and in its casting of Will Smith — it is also very much a propulsive, Hollywood-style action-fueled adventure.

The country has been at war for two years when Peter (Smith) is removed from the sprawling Louisiana planation where he labors and lives alongside his wife, Dodienne (Charmaine Bingwa), their children and many other enslaved people. He has been forcibly enlisted to work on behalf of the rebel cause, to the displeasure of the plantation’s owner. Peter, after all, is valuable property. The family’s separation is a rapid, violent churn of screams and threats, and soon Peter is encaged on a horse-drawn cart with other enslaved men, en route to an expansive camp to build railroad tracks for the Confederacy.

The director Antoine Fuqua has carved out an estimable career with a string of muscular action movies (most famously “Training Day”), and he brings his characteristic combination of panache and bluntness to “Emancipation.” It’s fast, intense and uncompromising in its representation of violence. Given the movie’s sober subject, it’s also, wisely, less visually baroque than most of his movies, even if its images — including of the silent and alone Peter on the run — speak more eloquently and powerfully than any of its words do. (Fuqua and the cinematographer, Robert Richardson, who’s best known for his work with Quentin Tarantino, have mercifully desaturated the color palette.)

The scenes at the railroad camp are vicious and unsparing, and nearly overwhelm the movie with their abject savagery. Here, the shackled and barefoot Peter is brought to help the Confederate war machine. Alongside other men, he staggers through mud hauling heavy pieces of timber while wearing something that looks like a plow harness. It’s a sharp, nauseating detail that illustrates the physical demands of Peter’s labor. More important, it telegraphs that, for their captors, these enslaved men are nothing other than beasts of burden. Smith is very effective here and in later scenes after Peter escapes, and the actor brings feeling and intensity to a role that is lamentably short of nuance and character insight.

Peter’s time at the camp is exceedingly hard to watch, and more than once, I flashed on Laszlo Nemes’s “Son of Saul,” a Hungarian film largely set in the Auschwitz death camp. Like that film, “Emancipation” is unblinking in its depictions of intentional and capricious sadism; here, men are driven to work until they fall, their bodies tossed in a mass grave. Part of this movie’s power comes from its insistence that you look at the near-unbearable, that you confront slavery as a crime against humanity rather than the perverse myth of the so-called Lost Cause enshrined in countless paintings, books, films and statues.

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Emancipation (2022) Movie Review – A treatise on the brutalities of slavery

A treatise on the brutalities of slavery.

In 1863, a widely-circulated photograph changed the course of the abolitionist movement in the United States. The photo, taken by McPherson and Oliver, and entitled “The Scourged Back,” depicts a former Louisiana slave named Gordon and known as “Whipped Peter.” A full display of the deep lacerations on Gordon’s back was meant to finally prove to the nation the brutalities of slavery–and it did.

The same motivation courses throughout Emancipation , director Antoine Fuqua’s slavery drama starring Will Smith. Based on the true story of Gordon’s escape and his service in the Union army, the film begins on the plantation of Captain Lyons, where Peter (Smith) is enslaved with his wife Dodienne (Charmaine Bingwa) and kids. When Peter is sold to the Confederate Army for railroad work, nothing can crush his resolve to reunite with his beloved family.

Word has spread that President Abraham Lincoln has freed the slaves in rebelling states, so Peter decides to escape to Baton Rouge in hopes of finding Lincoln’s army. He’ll face the dangerous swamps of Louisiana and the cruel chase of overseer Jim Fassel (Ben Foster) and his dogs–but keeps his eyes trained steadfast at the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel: freedom.

Like the picture of Gordon’s back, Peter’s more embellished story doesn’t shy away from the atrocities committed against Black slaves. But whereas “The Scourged Back” had a grandiose effect in changing the minds of those willfully ignorant of slavery’s true nature, in adapting photograph to screen, Emancipation feels exploitative in its repetitive barrage of human suffering. Of course, given the propensity of so many to forget history, it’s important to keep telling these narratives. But Emancipation does so with little emotional heart.

As beautiful as cinematographer Robert Richardson’s work is, there’s something off-putting in Peter’s story being one so breathtakingly cinematic. After Peter is sold to the Confederate Army, a rapidly moving tracking shot sweeps over the developing railroad to show the other enslaved men hard at work. It’s almost too-coordinated, too-postured. The grandiose camera work and the black-and-the white style (with the interesting addition of color grading) only reinforce that picturesque, fictive quality.

Ultimately, Emancipation ’s focus is too wide and contrived. Similar to so many war stories, Fuqua turns a slave narrative into dramatic entertainment instead of focusing on the humanity within it. There are still pockets of truth and poignancy where the film decides to address deeper motivations of its characters–like how Fassel’s White supremacy is informed by his fear of Black people, or how Peter’s faith drives him forward. But Bill Collage’s script doesn’t dig deeper in these brief moments.

Smith’s performance is admirable, as he portrays Peter with a palpable, just-under-the-surface rage. In the end, however, he has little to work with. Fuqua and Collage had the opportunity to give the man from the famous picture a voice. To show who Peter might have been as a person, and not only display the suffering he experienced. And it slipped through their grasp.

In 1863, Gordon’s photograph was taken and circulated throughout the United States, and people took notice of his suffering. To bring back that photograph for modern society’s gaze requires an emotional intelligence–a purpose beyond suffering. Emancipation doesn’t quite hit that mark.

Read More: Emancipation Ending Explained

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Verdict - 5.5/10 5.5/10

2 thoughts on “Emancipation (2022) Movie Review – A treatise on the brutalities of slavery”

Everything u saw in that movie happened, from heads being impaled on stakes, to ppl disabling themselves to prevent being sold, and the daily savagery of the lives of black ppl, so sorry not sorry if it upset your conception of what slavery was really like

This movie wasn’t meant for your enjoyment, it depicted a black man that couldn’t be subdued, that’s what this picture was about strength, not like u said over depiction of brutality, you mean reality, it destroys your image of acceptance by blacks being docile, well we weren’t, there were 200 slave rebellions in this country, the truth matters

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'Emancipation' review: A powerhouse Will Smith lifts the wobbly Apple TV+ action thriller

The stylish period drama “Emancipation” tries to juggle, with mixed results, an assortment of genres: survival thriller, action adventure and Civil War epic. Yet it mainly works, due to a quietly powerful performance from Will Smith as an enslaved man just trying to get home.

There is a Homeric quality to director Antoine Fuqua’s film (★★½ out of four; rated R; in theaters now and streaming on Apple TV+ Friday), which takes the well-known 1863 photograph of “Whipped Peter” – showing the scarred and mutilated back of a Black soldier serving in the Union army – and creates a fictionalized, often brutal journey of faith and fortitude. The heart of the matter gets lost amid the action-movie elements – with shades of "The Revenant” and “Glory" – though a dedicated Smith emotionally steadies the film through its rougher spots.

Peter (Smith) is a Haitian-born Christian working the cotton fields on a Louisiana plantation. “The Lord is with me. I will not be afraid. What can a mere man do to me?” he tells his wife Dodienne (Charmaine Bingwa) and family. One day, Peter is ripped from his life by Southern goons – he literally tears the hinges off of his door trying to stay with his loved ones – and taken to work at a Confederate labor camp.

'I completely understand': Will Smith knows people may skip 'Emancipation' after Oscars slap

The story is set after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation when hundreds of thousands of Black people had to wait for the North to liberate them or take their freedom themselves. Learning that enslaved men are heading for Baton Rouge, where Lincoln’s army is located, Peter pulls off a risky escape with a few others. But they're pursued through the swamps by vicious “manhunter” Jim Fassel (Ben Foster), whose prejudice is born from shame and fear. He’s not the only problem, however: Peter also encounters natural obstacles such as bees, leeches, snakes and one very hungry alligator.

Armed with uncanny survival skills, Peter meets Andrew Cailloux (Mustafa Shakir) and becomes part of his all-Black regiment of Union soldiers, but never sets aside his larger mission.

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Smith's strong performance shores up missing pieces of character development, which is an issue overall for "Emancipation." We know what kind of man Peter is, yet we don't really get to know him: how he knows to put honey on a gnarly wound or rub onion on himself to get dogs off his trail. So much of the film is spent on the chase or war scenes that at key times it becomes more about the action than the man at the center.

From a technical standpoint, though, Fuqua's filmmaking impresses on a few levels. The monochrome cinematography lends a distinctive feel, accentuated by uses of spot color – for example, crimson blood on leaves or the red of a child's dress. And tracking shots of swamps and landscapes show the scale of Peter’s quest and the horrors of battle.

There’s a propulsive quality to the film, especially with Peter on the run. Yet it’s not an easy watch, with images of decapitated heads, sounds of whips and screams, and other horrific traumas suffered by enslaved people of the time. One of the most unsettling scenes has Peter trying to sneak past a house when a little white girl sees him. Just as you hope she won’t say anything, she rings a bell and shouts, “Runner!” in a moment that nods to the film's real-world themes of learned racism and systemic prejudice.

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“Emancipation” truly finds itself when it digs into the thoughts, feelings and beliefs of Smith's character as he trades barbs with Foster’s Fassel, has a discussion about God and slavery with a fellow prisoner or stands up to a dismissive military man who questions his fight.

It’s been quite a year for the actor, from winning an Oscar to the aftermath of “ The Slap ,” but at least he ends 2022 with a strong reminder of his talent. Sure, there are little glimpses of Smith, the charming movie star. But it's his commitment to capturing the authenticity and agony of the struggle by Peter (and those like him) that stays with you the most.

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‘emancipation’ review: will smith leads antoine fuqua’s propulsive but shallow slave drama.

The Oscar winner stars alongside Ben Foster and Charmaine Bingwa in a narrative based on the true story of "Whipped Peter," an enslaved man who escaped a Confederate army labor camp.

By Lovia Gyarkye

Lovia Gyarkye

Arts & Culture Critic

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Lately, I’ve been examining my deep ambivalence toward slave movies — an attitude motivated by a suspicion of Hollywood’s insatiable appetite for tragic Black characters.

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Emancipation.

Common Sense Says
Parents Say 3 Reviews
Kids Say 2 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Slavery-era biopic has intense, gratuitous violence.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 16+?

Multiple scenes with cruel/harsh violence and body horror, including a beheading

Use of the "N" word, plus "dammit," "hell," "s--t."

Any Positive Content?

Encourages audiences to exercise compassion and empathy for people who've been s

Peter must draw on his perseverance and self-control to survive in the harsh Lou

Black filmmaker Antoine Fuqua directs Will Smith and a mostly Black cast. But Sm

Violence & Scariness

Multiple scenes with cruel/harsh violence and body horror, including a beheading, mauling, alligators feeding on a dead body, gun violence, and a veiled threat of underage sexual violence. Death in battle is also shown. One scene shows a body being gnawed upon by rats.

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Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

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Positive Messages

Encourages audiences to exercise compassion and empathy for people who've been subjugated in the past. Positive attributes such as courage, integrity, perseverance, and self-control are highlighted. But film's focus on extreme violence could lessen the impact of its messages.

Positive Role Models

Peter must draw on his perseverance and self-control to survive in the harsh Louisiana swamp as he outruns those pursuing him. He uses these same tools on the battlefield as he fights for freedom in the Civil War. His life and his actions are likely to inspire audiences to express compassion and empathy for those who've been mistreated due to racial violence.

Diverse Representations

Black filmmaker Antoine Fuqua directs Will Smith and a mostly Black cast. But Smith's character Peter's position as role model hinges on his being written as "the perfect victim," a construct also seen in real life, when Black victims can be considered worthy of praise or help only if they meet a shifting set of criteria from a White mainstream public. Peter is a devout Christian, lighter-skinned family man -- all contributing to image of a "perfect" Black victim of White supremacy. In reality, Peter was darker than Smith, and, while several details surrounding his escape are portrayed in the film, it's unclear how devout of a Christian he was. But, of course, his beliefs shouldn't impact whether he "deserves" freedom. Film also has what some might feel is gratuitous body horror/violence, even for a film about slavery, which makes it feel like the movie is wallowing in Black pain to an uncomfortable degree under the guise of making a point about slavery's harshness.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Parents need to know that Emancipation is a fact-based historical drama about an enslaved man known as Peter ( Will Smith ). A Civil War-era photograph of Peter known as "The Scourged Back" helped accelerate the abolitionist movement. Expect graphic scenes of violence against Black people that could be seen as gratuitous, even when considered under the guise of "educational content." The violence and body horror -- including a beheading, mauling, alligators feeding on a dead body, gun violence, and a veiled threat of underage sexual violence -- could dull the impact of the movie's messages about compassion and empathy. There's also smoking and strong language, including the "N" word, "dammit," and "s--t." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (3)
Kids say (2)

Based on 3 parent reviews

Powerful, emotional and brutal

What's the story.

EMANCIPATION follows Peter ( Will Smith ), an enslaved man who is taken from his family and sent to work for the Confederates during the Civil War. He and other enslaved people escape into the swamp, and Peter spends several harrowing days on the run until he makes it to the local Union encampment. Once there, he serves in the Army and gets a picture taken of his scarred back. The picture, called "The Scourged Back," adds more fuel to the fire of the abolitionist movement, leading to the end of slavery in America.

Is It Any Good?

This drama has good intentions in wanting to portray the realities of slavery, but those intentions are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of graphic violence. Violence is an expected part of a story about slavery, so it's understandable that Emancipation would include some intense and upsetting moments. But certain scenes last so long, with no real reason for their existence, that it's hard not to wonder what the point of showing them actually is. Is it for education, or is it morbid entertainment? Given the United States' record of using Black bodies and death for entertainment and morbid curiosity, this question is a legitimate one to ask.

Making a film about slavery has become an increasingly dicey proposition the more that audiences, especially Black audiences, lose their appetite for seeing Black death on-screen. The tragic real-world killings of Black people have helped spur the movement to put a stop to telling stories about Black pain. Yes, films about the United States' painful treatment of Black Americans are still necessary, but scenes of extreme violence are tough to excuse, especially since some seem merely there as set dressing. And even beyond that, Emancipation is only OK. The film does have gripping moments as Peter (whose real name was actually Gordon, but that name is inexplicably given to a separate character) outwits his captors in the swamp. But overall, the film seems positioned as awards season bait and is yet another movie designed to educate audiences -- White audiences in particular -- about the basic tenets of compassion and empathy. For Black viewers, it might just be more visual and audible trauma.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in Emancipation . Is all of it necessary to tell the story? Do you think the violence helps or harms the film's message?

How did Peter's image help the abolitionist movement? How did he show perseverance ?

How was self-control a part of Peter's survival skills?

The movie is based on a true story. How accurate do you think it is to what actually happened? Why do you think filmmakers might change the details in a fact-based movie?

Movie Details

In theaters : December 2, 2022
On DVD or streaming : December 9, 2022
Cast : Will Smith , Ben Foster , Charmaine Bingwa , Mustafa Shakir
Director : Antoine Fuqua
Inclusion Information : Black directors, Black actors, Female actors, Gay actors
Studio : Apple TV+
Genre : Drama
Topics : History
Run time : 132 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : strong racial violence, disturbing images and language
Award : NAACP Image Award - NAACP Image Award Nominee
Last updated : August 22, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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AV Undercover

Emancipation review: Will Smith's grueling slave drama is as shallow as a Louisiana bayou

Smith plays a civil war-era slave on the run from a villainous ben foster in a genre exercise from training day director antoine fuqua.

This is only speculation, but the cast and crew of Emancipation , Antoine Fuqua’s Louisiana bayou chase movie disguised as a Civil War slave drama, probably slogged through the mud and muck under the assumption they were making a prestige picture on the order of 2013’s Oscar-winning 12 Years A Slave . But watching Will Smith, as a real-life escaped slave named Gordon (rechristened here using the other name he was known by; Peter or “Whipped Peter”), wrestle an alligator and stab a slave catcher with a cross necklace, we realize the film is actually Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained (a film that Smith famously turned down) had Tarantino played it with humorless historical reverence. Or maybe Smith is trying to one-up Leonardo DiCaprio’s physical and spiritual debasement in The Revenant . Either way, this leaden beast of self-importance traffics in the kind of ultra-masculine action movie clichés that Fuqua ( Training Day , The Equalizer ) should have set aside for something subtler. So a drama that aches to connect with the George Floyd era is more like amped-up misery porn, a Will Smith vanity project that pales next to more accomplished films about Black suffering that better remind us of our nation’s ongoing shame.

Not much is known about the historical figure Smith is playing, so screenwriter Bill Collage (the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen comedy New York Minute and the video game adaptation Assassin’s Creed ) punts the idea of Peter being a three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood character and instead crafts an action-packed story whose narrow focus reads as a lack of imagination rather than a narrative necessity. What we do know is that two months after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, the real Gordon escaped a Louisiana labor camp and went on the run through the unforgiving bayou for 10 punishing days before being rescued in Baton Rouge and joining the Union Army. At the army camp, a pair of photographers took a photo of Gordon’s horrendously scarred back, its disturbing array of crisscrossing welts a testament to years of merciless whippings. The image, which came to be known as Whipped Peter or The Scourged Back, became visual proof of the injustice of slavery and it gave a crucial boost to the abolitionist movement.

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In Emancipation , what happens before and after the taking of this influential photo (first published in Harper’s Weekly in July of 1863) is justifiably invented but unjustifiably fraudulent, a pedestal upon which Smith can foreground his virtuousness and Fuqua can flex his muscular style. Smith, his charm deeply buried and his lower jaw thrust defiantly forward, gives a grim, committed performance that elicits our sympathy since he’s mostly asked to convey suffering and perseverance as he fights off snakes, bees, dogs, alligators, and the men who relentlessly pursue him. He’s also firmly in A-lister territory, which adds an unwelcome air of award-me ostentation to the whole affair. Only Peter has the courage to stand up for the other slaves, during combat he’s unimpeachably courageous, and his comforting whispers of “go to momma” are enough to send a dying soldier to his reward. The latter moment, which comes during a thrilling battle towards the film’s end, is in line with the Christian faith that keeps the fire of Peter’s resolve raging. It’s mostly lip service, however: had Peter taken even a moment to question a God who would allow slavery to happen and not merely and once-too-often noted his devotion to the Lord, Emancipation could have kicked into a higher spiritual gear.

Yet the priority is to put Peter through a gauntlet of indignities which begins when he’s torn away from his wife, Dodienne (a gently powerful Charmaine Bingwa), and children and taken to a Confederate labor camp where he helps lay railroad tracks. When Peter overhears that Lincoln has freed the slaves, he makes his escape with three other indentured men. Their plan is to travel through the Louisiana swamps to Baton Rouge and meet up with the Union Army. When Emancipation shifts into chase mode, with Peter and the others followed by a posse led by a stock villain named Fassel (Ben Foster, doing his stoically evil thing), Fuqua is more at home. But that’s hardly a compliment because the more arduous Peter’s slog through the bayou and the more suspenseful his near-miss encounters, the more the film plays like a slick genre exercise. In this gravest of contexts, Fuqua’s natural proclivity for blunt force violence reduces some of his depictions of slave life to being too visually performative.

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Given that he’s conceived as near-messianic, Peter survives the bayou and finds his way to Baton Rouge where he joins the all-Black 1st Louisiana Native Guard. The ensuing battle, where Peter is led by a Black captain (Mustafa Shakir), serves as a stirring update to 1989’s fact-based Glory where a white colonel (Matthew Broderick) led an all-Black Civil War infantry regiment to their honorable deaths. Here, Peter marches in uniform alongside only Black Union fighters and then almost singlehandedly wins the battle, another nod to reductive hero cinema that masks the satisfaction of Peter taking up government-sanctioned arms against those who’ve tormented him. This blood-soaked final battle is the capstone to cinematographer Robert Richardson’s top-notch contribution. He moves the camera in wide, swooping motions to capture the enormity of production designer Naomi Shohan’s bleakly authentic Civil War battlefields. These drone and crane shots are risky because they break the intimacy of hewing so closely to Peter but they’re too hauntingly beautiful not to work. The film’s palette is mostly black and white with only occasional tufts of color peeking through. In one of the film’s most disturbing moments, a young white girl dressed quite visibly in red yells “runner” when she sees Peter trespassing on her family’s plantation.

From 1977’s Roots to 12 Years A Slave , the best works in this still-vital and necessary genre have a powerful simplicity, as a lone slave struggles to free himself from an unimaginably vast and cruel system designed to ensure his eternal bondage. He’s not a symbol. He represents only himself. Emancipation is Smith as a superhero who can “survive things most men can’t” and an icon “who taught us to hold on, hold on to each other!” Ultimately then, Emancipation is not the story of Peter, it’s the story of Will Smith playing Peter. Gordon’s actual journey feels in the service of a Hollywood star dreaming of an Oscar, less than a year after his supremely ill-advised display of racist-emboldening Black-on-Black violence at the 2022 Academy Awards. It’s a testament to Smith’s formidable abilities that his performance, as uncelebrated by Oscar as it’s destined to be, will make you forget The Slap. Unfortunately, Fuqua’s unshakable dependence on chase film tropes will make you forget the movie.

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Partway through “Emmanuelle,” the French filmmaker Audrey Diwan’s third feature, a sleazy producer strikes up a conversation with the title character in a hotel spa. “Only two types of guests frequent luxury hotels,” he purrs to Emmanuelle , “those on the prowl and those on the run.”

In readapting the book, Diwan — who was approached to make the movie by producers and wrote the screenplay alongside “Other People’s Children” filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski — tries to reframe the story with a woman’s touch, specifically by divorcing the pursuit of personal pleasure from the men (and women) whose beds Emmanuelle often shares.

The film opens by throwing viewers straight in. On a jet in first class, Emmanuelle, wearing a slinky dress and heels, makes eyes at the businessman sitting across from her. Soon, she’s sauntering off to the bathroom stall, where she meets the stranger for a quick session of thrusts and grunts. This pattern repeats itself once Emmanuelle arrives at her destination: a chic Hong Kong hotel called the Rosefield. Seated beside a couple at the bar one night, she effortlessly flirts her way into a ménage à trois.

In both of these cases, Emmanuelle ostensibly scores. There’s just one problem: Once she has her objects of desire in her clutches, her gaze turns from inviting to vacant. Emmanuelle has no trouble getting it up for the baiting part of the encounter. She just can’t feel anything during the sex acts — and so ends up going through the motions with a blank face and dead eyes. How can our seductress get herself to lean in and enjoy it?

That this subplot concerning Margot proves largely peripheral to “Emmanuelle” should come as no big surprise. Diwan has set out to make erotica, after all, and amid this movie’s spate of stagy, ultra-sleek sex scenes, there’s limited stamina for anything beyond build-up and more build-up, since our girl can’t reach release. Offering her a shot at it, though, is Kei (Will Sharpe, sounding like he’s straining to deepen his voice by several octaves). A stony-faced American engineer, Kei is a frequent Rosefield guest whose mystery obsesses Emmanuelle. “You’re chasing after a ghost,” the hotel security shrugs, when Emmanuelle requests insight into Kei’s erratic routine.

Over time, Kei’s spectral presence comes to serve as a metaphor for Emmanuelle’s elusive sexual gratification — like her own pleasure, this insomniac traveler is difficult to pin down. Diwan also externalizes Emmanuelle’s striving for pleasure in her environment: the pristine but severe Rosefield, a venue as forbidding as it is lavish. At one point, Margot even reveals to Emmanuelle that there’s a secret wing of the hotel still under construction; Margot succeeds in keeping it hidden from guests by hiring a construction crew who works silently.

Diwan is of course going for Wong Kar-wai over Taylor-Johnson, “Lost in Translation” over “Showgirls.” But in aiming for a piece of atmospheric sensuality, she instead lands in an erotic no man’s land, where the dramatic but obvious filmmaking — like an orbital shot when Emmanuelle finally reaches orgasm — isn’t surprising or evocative enough to make up for the silly monologues and empty characterizations.

It’s jarring to see a gifted filmmaker like Diwan commit her running time to all austere settings and no substance. Beholding the anticlimax, you might find yourself seeking out sparks of interest, like the exotic bouquet in the Rosefield lobby that droops as the day passes. Talk about a petite mort. Or how about the film’s through-line of surveillance, reflected in the hotel’s CCTV observation room and Emmanuelle’s selfie phone camera? Indeed, the movie’s sexiest scene finds our temptress entering Kei’s room and wordlessly taking nude photos of herself on his bed. As Emmanuelle watches herself through her lens, an autoerotic pulse throbs through the movie like a heartbeat. It may be a faint one, but at least it’s proof of life.

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Emancipation movie review & film summary (2022)
Fuqua believes Peter is all of the above. Unfortunately, in wearing these many hats, "Emancipation" becomes an exhaustive, vicious, and stylistically overcooked recounting of a man whose very visage led the abolitionist charge. "Emancipation" is a hollow piece of genre filmmaking that rarely answers, "Why this story and why now?".
Emancipation (2022)
Rated 2/5 Stars • Rated 2 out of 5 stars 12/24/22 Full Review Zach I want a fucking refund this theater ruined my movie by turning the lights on half way through and refusing to turn them off ...
'Emancipation' Review Roundup: What the Critics Are Saying
The review embargo for Antoine Fuqua's much-talked about escaped slave drama Emancipation lifted Wednesday evening and early critics reaction to the Apple Original Films feature is decidedly ...
Emancipation
Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 15, 2023. Martin Carr We Got This Covered. This visually stunning film from director Antoine Fuqua suffers from a weak script, poor characterization, and ...
Emancipation review: Will Smith in a ruthless, affecting slavery drama
Emancipation. review: Will Smith is on the run in a ruthless slavery drama. Director Antoine Fuqua tilts true history into a brutal, broad-strokes action thriller elevated by his central star's ...
Emancipation (2022)
Emancipation: Directed by Antoine Fuqua. With Will Smith, Ben Foster, Charmaine Bingwa, Gilbert Owuor. A runaway slave forges through the swamps of Louisiana on a tortuous journey to escape plantation owners that nearly killed him.
Emancipation Review: Will Smith's Brutal Drama Brought ...
With Antoine Fuqua 's Emancipation, Smith gets a bit closer to this vision, in this story based on the life of the escaped slave Gordon, also known as "Whipped Peter.". Smith plays Peter, a ...
'Emancipation' review: Will Smith action-drama wobbles
Review: 'Emancipation,' with Will Smith, struggles to do its real-life survival story justice. Will Smith. (Quantrell Colbert/Apple) By Justin Chang Film Critic. Nov. 30, 2022 10:01 PM PT. In ...
Emancipation Review: Fuqua's Latest Historical Drama Is Gorgeous But
Written by William N. Collage and directed by Fuqua, the story capture's one man's wit and determination for freedom. And while Emancipation contains beautiful cinematography amidst brutalities of oppression, it conveys very little about the man who should easily inspire the world. Will Smith stars as Peter (named Gordon in real life), a ...
'Emancipation' Review: Will Smith In Antoine Fuqua's ...
Read Deadline's review of 'Emancipation,' starring Will Smith as the enslaved "Whipped Peter," from director Antoine Fuqua and Apple Original Films.
Emancipation
Emancipation is a finely crafted, unflinching pursuit thriller about a slave seizing his freedom in 1860s Louisiana, and the first notable thing about it is that Smith is terrific in it. ... This review contains spoilers.] Read More Report. 60. Vanity Fair Jun 12, 2023 Fuqua's chosen technique only undermines his solemn intentions, rather ...
Emancipation
Release Date: 09 Dec 2022. Original Title: Emancipation. Slavery is a near-impossible subject matter to get right on screen. To sugar-coat it is to effectively deny history; to depict it simply as ...
'Emancipation' Review: Will Smith Carries Epic Slave Saga
'Emancipation' Review: A Subdued Will Smith Carries Antoine Fuqua's Brutal but Essential Slave Saga Inspired by the runaway slave whose photo made abolitionists of many who looked upon it ...
'Emancipation' review: Decent action film could have been so much more
'Emancipation' a decent action film that could have been so much more Will Smith sticks to Movie Star mode as a family man dodging hunters, bullets, a gator and a snake while fleeing slavery.
'Emancipation' Review: Will Smith in a Brutal Journey
Yet Peter's story and Smith's warmth carry you through this movie, which has heart and conviction and toughness — the image of the pretty little white girl who points at Peter while ...
Emancipation (2022) Movie Review
He'll face the dangerous swamps of Louisiana and the cruel chase of overseer Jim Fassel (Ben Foster) and his dogs-but keeps his eyes trained steadfast at the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel: freedom. Like the picture of Gordon's back, Peter's more embellished story doesn't shy away from the atrocities committed against Black ...
'Emancipation' review: Will Smith shines in Apple TV+ action thriller
1:38. The stylish period drama "Emancipation" tries to juggle, with mixed results, an assortment of genres: survival thriller, action adventure and Civil War epic. Yet it mainly works, due to ...
Review
Will Smith plays a man fleeing the horrors of slavery in Antoine Fuqua's Civil War chase film. 4 min. From left, Imani Pullum, Will Smith, Jeremiah Friedlander, Landon Chase Dubois, Charmaine ...
'Emancipation' Review: Will Smith Leads Shallow Historical Drama
By Lovia Gyarkye. November 30, 2022 10:00pm. Will Smith in 'Emancipation.'. Courtesy of Apple TV+. Lately, I've been examining my deep ambivalence toward slave movies — an attitude motivated ...
Emancipation Movie Review
age 15+. Based on 3 parent reviews. davidkimroth Parent of 15, 16 and 18+-year-old. December 13, 2022. age 15+. A very powerful movie about United States of America not always shown much in movies. The effect the civil war on the slaves. Great cinematography and story. Battle at the end was as good as Saving Private Ryan.
Emancipation (2022 film)
Emancipation is a 2022 American historical action thriller film [3] [4] [5] directed by Antoine Fuqua, written by William N. Collage, and co-produced by Will Smith, who stars as a runaway slave headed for Baton Rouge, Louisiana in the 1860s, after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation to end slavery in secessionist Confederate states, [6] surviving the swamps while ...
Emancipation review: Will Smith's grueling slave drama is as shallow as
This is only speculation, but the cast and crew of Emancipation, Antoine Fuqua's Louisiana bayou chase movie disguised as a Civil War slave drama, probably slogged through the mud and muck under ...
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Any discussion of "Emancipation" will inevitably be clouded by the Will Smith of it all, and Apple's decision to release the movie into the teeth of awards season. The focus will thus skew ...
'Emmanuelle' Review: An Erotic Drama That Is More Aloof ...
'Emmanuelle' Review: Audrey Diwan's Erotic Drama Is More Aloof than Alluring Set in a luxury Hong Kong hotel, this clunky remake of a soft-core classic stars Noémie Merlant as a woman who ...

Emancipation

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