Amazing Grace
Studio: Walden Media
Rated: PG
Website: http://www.amazinggracemovie.com/
Release Date: 2007-02-23
Cast: Ioan Gruffudd, Albert Finney, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Gambon, Romola Garai
Director: Michael Apted
WorkNameSort: Amazing Grace
Our Rating: 2.00
Just in from the Liberal Guilt Bureau, Historical Division, is this overstuffed tale of William Wilberforce (played by Ioan Gruffudd), a British MP who spent most of his 18th-century life trying to end the British slave trade. It’s a good story, but director Michael Apted can’t help but fall into the usual cinematic habits of the hagiographic species: Huge swaths of history are compressed in cameo appearances, a rote love story involving Wilberforce and an upper-class babe (Romola Garai) feels retrofitted for mass appeal, while evocations of Wilberforce’s transcendental Christianity feel like they’re ported from a New Age video. For sheer miscalculation, some fire-and-brimstone-looking scenes of African servitude (that look like Amistad outtakes by way of Hellboy) threaten to take the cake, although the use of the great African musician Youssou N’Dour as the film’s Noble African ‘ dragged out like a human PowerPoint presentation whenever the white characters need to emote with added gravitas ‘ is also remarkable.
This article appears in Feb 21-27, 2007.