A runaway slave forges through the swamps of Louisiana on a tortuous journey to escape plantation owners that nearly killed him.... (Full plot summary below)
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A runaway slave forges through the swamps of Louisiana on a tortuous journey to escape plantation owners that nearly killed him.
Leave your thoughts about Emancipation.
| Austin ChronicleMatthew MonagleDespite so many pieces that fail to fit together, Emancipation succeeds on entertainment alone. |
| New York PostJohnny OleksinskiEmancipation, which is an otherwise well-tread period drama about the horrors of slavery, features more of Smith’s rich emotionality and laser-focused intensity that he’s uncovered late in his career and that won him the Oscar for last year’s “King Richard.” |
| The GuardianPeter BradshawThis is a strong, fierce, heartfelt movie. |
| VarietyPeter DebrugeAnchored by an ultra-focused and unusually low-key Will Smith as Peter, Emancipation can be an intense and at times almost unbearable thing to watch, presented in meticulously composed, nearly black-and-white frames, desaturated to the point of Civil War photographer Matthew Brady’s grim battlefield tableaux. |
| The TelegraphRobbie CollinEmancipation 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. |
| Entertainment WeeklyLeah Greenblatt[Smith's] 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. |
| The New York TimesManohla DargisPart 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. |
| Original-CinJim SlotekA slave-on-the-run movie that uses every bit of its star’s modest acting ability and ticks all the award boxes, Antoine Fuqua’s Emancipation would be a shoo-in in a world where Smith was not banned from the Oscars for 10 years. |
| The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzThrough it all, Smith’s performance grounds the horror in a place of courage, heart and soul. |
| Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperDespite 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. |
