Movie Reviews: 12 Years a Slave


12 Years a Slave tells of Solomon Northup, a black man living free from the shackles of slavery in upstate New York, until he is abducted and sold into slavery.

Northup, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, is taken to New Orleans where he is forced to work on a plantation. The film, based on the memoirs of Northup, has been praised for its brutal and unflinching portrayal of the horrors inflicted to slaves during the 1800s in the USA.





Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News writes:

"12 Years a Slave is a harrowing, unforgettable drama that doesn't look away from the reality of slavery and, in so doing, helps us all fully, truly confront it."





Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post states:

"[Director] McQueen invites the audience to sit with him as he gazes, amazed, at man's inhumanity to man."





The LA Times Kenneth Turan says:

"The film is hard to watch, but this film intends to do more than tell us a story. It wants to immerse us in an experience, and it does."





The New York Times' Manohla Dargis says:

"There is much to admire about 12 Years a Slave, including the cleareyed, unsentimental quality of its images … and how Mr. Ejiofor's restrained, open, translucent performance works as a ballast, something to cling onto, especially during the frenzies of violence."





The Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern writes:

"Movie audiences have never been presented with anything quite like the intertwined beauty and savagery of 12 Years a Slave, so it's anyone's guess whether they'll extend the embrace that Steve McQueen's film deserves."

-IMDb News

How many times do we need to see movies about slavery? Hahahahahaha. Everybody knows slavery existed a long time ago and it still exists in some foreign countries and american states. Slavery is a terrible thing and we don't need to be reminded of it. Chiwetel Ejiofor who's in 12 Years A Slave is a good actor and he shouldn't have wasted his time with this. I liked him as a bad guy in Four Brothers with Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese, Terrence Howard and i liked him in American Gangster with Denzel Washington as Denzel's drug dealer cousin. I was watching the fight scene on Youtube yesterday from Four Brothers that was between Chiwetel and Mark Wahlberg. Mark whipped him good LOL.

Watching this film reminded me so much of Henry Highland Garnet's speech he gave in 1843 at the National Negro Convention in Buffalo, New York. The correlation I made from the film to the speech was how the main character Solomon Northup was a free man in Saratoga Springs, New York then through the course of a potential job offering was kidnapped and sold into slavery, the word of Henry Highland Garnet came to mind "nor can we be free while you are enslaved". What I took from those words was that even though blacks were free up north they still could lose their freedom because slavery was still i existence in the south. How true that came to be for Solomon. What was also very interesting was how the slave owners would use religion to oppress the slaves. The readings from the bible that Edwin Epps contorted to make it seem it was his god given right to own slaves was a perfect example. Garnet addressed this in his speech "nearly three million of your fellow-citizens are prohibited by law and public opinion from reading the Book of Life" he knew the power of religion and the negative ways it was used by whites who were pro-slavery.
In the film the conditions shown of how slaves were treated were horrible. It's no wonder Patsey wanted Solomon to kill her. Another thing that was brought up in this film was how it was every man for himself, Garnet spoke of this idea of in numbers they are greater and they must fight all together to get rid of slavery. One phrase that Garnet repeats throughout his speech is "if you must bleed, let it all come at once" these words are very powerful, he knew the reason why many blacks in slavery didn't rebel were because they were afraid of being killed or tortured. The reality of it was as he said you have been suffering greatly many have died, gotten tortured, and beat you are already bleeding let all come out! What did they have to lose their lives? They were already and if they did nothing then they would eventually die because of slavery. By the end of the film Solomon's great ordeal of spending twelve years as a slave made him an advocate against slavery. There is a scene in which he and his family go into the a store and a slave follows inside, sees them get service and treated equally, then his master comes in to get him. Solomon witnesses this but goes with his life, before he himself was sold into slavery he was a man that was working to maintain his family but didn't concern himself much with slavery so it seemed in the film. Though what happened to him was horrific he eventually got to return to his family, he realized that something needed to be done to end slavery and this is the same issue Garnet was expressing in his speech. Overall I enjoyed this film and on a side note even more so because Mr. Brad Pitt (the love of my life ;p) saved the day.