Free State Of Jones Review

In the steady but less-than-dextrous hands of director Gary Ross, Free State Of Jones turns an interesting sliver of US history into a stodgy wodge of blood, sweat and speechifyin’. It’s leavened somewhat by Matthew McConaughey, whose intense, blue-eyed glare and Southern charm are channelled effectively enough into the alpha character, Newt Jones. Sharp cheekbones hidden beneath a crazy-hobo beard, he sheds most blood, drips most of the sweat and delivers pretty much every single speech in that trademark croak-drawl. Though, after the turn of the film’s second long hour, it starts to rankle a little. Sadly, it seems the so-called McConaissance is already unravelling; Ross’ first film since The Hunger Games wasn’t the savviest of choices for the Dallas Buyers Club man.

The main problem here is that Ross can’t stick to a good story. Somewhere in the midst of this morass of a history lesson is a cracking Robin Hood reinterpretation. After rebelling against the Rebs, disgusted in particular at the way their brutal requisitioning policy affects the barely subsisting farmfolk of Jones County, Knight leads a ragtag group of deserters and escaped slaves, striking at the Confederates from the treacherous Mississippi swamp — his own ‘Sherwood’.

But Ross can’t just leave it there. Not only does he thin out the drama over a 14-year period, taking it way beyond the Civil War’s end, he also inserts jarring flashforwards to “85 years later” when Newton’s descendant is being prosecuted for his mixed-race lineage. And his repeated insertion of original photographs and historical documents hardly helps, giving the whole film the dusty tang of a museum AV exhibit.

Ross has a fair point to make. Namely, that what Knight and his fellow Free-Staters ultimately fought for — true emancipation for African-Americans — still hasn’t been entirely won. But he’s made it so poorly, all he’s achieved is an overlong and tiresome indulgence in white man’s guilt.