Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

lukechong "Ride with the Devil" was a major box office bomb when released in 1999. While not exactly a poor film, Ang Lee's well meaning but rather unentertaining Civil War epic doesn't seem to offer much flesh on the bones, despite starting intriguing enough, with a premise that promises much but fails to deliver later in the engagement factor.The film, based on James Schamus's screenplay on a nonfiction book, has an interesting slant on Civil War history, presenting the perspective of the Bushwhackers, of which the two principal leads are members of. However, after building up an engrossing start, the screenplay meanders into a romantic affair between Jack Bull Childs (Skeet Ulrich) and young widow Sue Lee Shelley (Jewel, in a quite admirably film debut). By the time the film depicts the Lawrence massacre, after some skirmishes and fights between the Bushwhackers and Jayhawkers, the movie begins to drag in an unnecessary romantic relationship between Shelley and Jake Roedel (Tobey Maguire), ending in a whimper rather than in a bang unlike most war epics.The film is more philosophical than most, and asks pertinent questions about racism, the nature and brutality of war and why and how it demonizes ordinary citizens. Yet three quarters into the film. the Lawrence massacre seems more like a standard trope scene in American war movies without presenting any fresh perspective, other than the rather generic "war always makes another man a bad guy". Ideally this sort of movie needs a Sam Fuller (or John Ford) to grab the audience by the collar or by the throat with visceral gutsiness; Ang Lee's film and screenplay seem too tame--well meaning though it is--and presents the Civil War with a tagged-on romance, a well executed but clearly a "cinematic" account of a war crime. It doesn't feel like the real thing, and doesn't convince.The performances all round is good, but Ang Lee's movie could gain with more in-your-gut visuals and quicker editing rather than narrative meanderings. I wish I could give this movie a higher rating but it is ultimately a little bland and unsatisfactory--perhaps more is required from this talented director and the scriptwriter team, which haven't seem to develop the screenplay sufficiently here to justify its two and half hours in the Director's Cut.

zardoz-13 This atmospheric Civil War saga about ferocious guerrilla warfare in the border states of Kansas and Missouri qualifies as another memorable epic from eclectic Asian director Ang Lee. Lee has helmed a variety of films in different settings and eras, among them "Sense and Sensibility," "Brokeback Mountain," "Hulk," "The Ice Storm," "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," and "Life of Pi." This complex, multi-gray shaded tale boasts a number of robush performances from a stellar cast featuring Tobey Maguire, Jim Caviezel, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Simon Baker, Jeffrey Wright, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson, Skeet Ulrich, and Jewel Kilcher. Jake 'Dutchy' Roedel (Tobey Maguire of "Spider-Man") and Jack Bull Chiles (Skeet Ulrich of "Scream") are Missouri natives who ride with the First Missouri Irregulars, notoriously known as the pro-Confederate Bushwhackers. Leading this disheveled, unkempt bunch is sinister Black John (Jim Caviezel of "Person of Interest") and murderous Pitt Mackeson (Jonathan Rhys Meyers of "The Tudors") who hate the Unionists with a fervor. Riding alongside them too are George Clyde (Simon Baker of "Smith") and his African-American sidekick Daniel Holt (Jeffrey Wright of "Casino Royale"), and these combatants live off the land. The remote action transpires in anonymous woods, hills, valleys, and densely thatched woods. "Eat Drink Man Woman" scenarist James Schamus has adapted Daniel Woodrell's 1987 novel ''Woe to Live On." Lee and he go to extraordinary lengths to capture the dialects and eccentric linguistic manner of speech like a period western rather than an anachronistic Hollywood shoot'em up with popular dialogue. "Ride with the Devil" isn't just another Civil War tale. Lee and lenser Frederick Elmes make it look like the wood cut photography from the era. Myers makes a terrific villain, and our hero and he have a dramatic showdown at the end. Lee's gunfights are well staged but never obscenely bloody. The Lawrence raid is especially brutal but realistic unlike the one sanitary version in "Quantrill's Raiders." After the raiders have evacuated the town, a youngster finds a drunken raider passed out in a store. He takes his revolver and before the raider can brandish his own gun, the youngster shoots him. This is the kind of movie where realism is stressed, particularly in the scene when Jake has to amputate Jack Bull's arm in their hovel in the middle of the woods. The costuming is as authentic looking as it can be. Genuine Civil War buffs will enjoy this outstanding opus. "Ride with the Devil" ranks as the best border war adventure on film.

juneebuggy Harrowing epic about a little known band of civil war fighter known as the "bushwhackers" who used guerrilla warfare to destroy Yankee targets. It follows Jake Roedel and Jack Bull Chiles who are friends in Missouri when the Civil War starts. When Jack's dad is killed by Union soldiers the young men join the Bushwhackers, irregulars loyal to the South.I liked this quite a bit, a part of American history that I knew nothing about. Episodic in its telling, I felt that this told the true story, as there weren't any real heroes here.Excellent battle scenes filled with hundreds of extras and great horse stunts. Well acted too with a huge (mostly unrecognizable) cast due to all the wigs and period costumes. Tobey Maguire is really good as is Jonathon Rhys Meyers, whose wild, long haired character stole every scene he was in. The romance was okay, overall it did waffle in parts, with long sections of character development followed by another legendary, bloody battle. Not many left alive by the end but I liked how this played out. 5/11/14

Wizard-8 I was interested in "Ride with the Devil", because it promised to focus on one aspect of the American Civil War that hasn't been depicted a great deal of times in other Civil War movies, the Bushwackers who were independent of the Confederate army and who raided the north. But in the end, I found the movie to be greatly uneven. On the positive side, the movie feels authentic, from the props and costumes to the locations chosen. The acting by all the players is also professional and helps sell the characters the actors play. On the other hand, the screenplay misses some key moments that might have given the characters more detail. For instance, we see precious little of the hero before the incident that pushes him to be a raider, and then the movie skips a year ahead to show him in midstream. A bigger problem is that the movie is too long. While the movie never gets to the point of being boring, it seems to be taking its sweet time during many moments. The movie also ends at a point that kind of leaves its characters hanging; I would have liked to have seen a more definite resolution. This is not an awful movie, but it's greatly uneven, and I can understand why despite its strengths, the major Hollywood studio that bankrolled the movie in the end only gave it a limited theatrical release.