Director: Gary Ross
Year Released: 2016
Rating: 2.0
During the Civil War, farmer-turned-nurse Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey) takes a deceased boy back to the child's mother for a proper burial and is labeled a deserter by the Confederate Army, so he bands together with runaway slaves and outcasts to form a 'militia' (the "Free State of Jones") and resist the corruption of the Confederacy. Though McConaughey's dedication to the project cannot be called into question, its flagrant Liberal Baiting certainly can, showing African-Americans beaten and lynched, children hanged, female slaves whipped ... oh, and it gets a little too cute with the timeline, often (joltingly) flashing forward to nearly 90 years later when one of Knight's descendants (of mixed race) marries a white woman and is imprisoned. More valuable for its historical value than its cinematic worth, but it's nice to learn the real Mr. Knight lived to a ripe old age (and stayed married to the same African-American woman!): fight for what's right ... and fight for the right to party with anyone you choose.
