User reviews

A family of runaway slaves head for Canada on the Underground Railroad, along the way, the eldest tells the story of how the family came to America and how they first found faith.

It feels like a passion project for Cuba Gooding Jr. who produced the project as well as acted in it. It was worth it.

The movie does not hold back on what a dark time slavery was, which made it all more inspiring watching this family escape from it. Along the way, meeting such famous figures as Fredrick Douglas.

I'm not to big on religion, so the whole Christian thing did not appeal to me at all. Cuba plays a man who gave up on God (which I feel is understandable for a slave) While the rest of his family believes that God is guiding them to freedom.

I also was disinterested in the sub story of a the ship captain that reluctantly brought slaves into the States.

The whole thing at times acted like a bad Broadway musical which was unattractive.

Overall, it's hard to find a movie about slavery enjoyable, but I did. It was a very realistic look at the subject and worth taking a look at.

"Freedom" is about an important subject - the Underground Railroad, which helped thousands of slaves escape from the American South to freedom in Canada. However, it's also about another subject - it traces the story of John Newton, the writer of the famous hymn "Amazing Grace," and it provides some background to the story of his religious conversion after his start as a slaveship captain. The story begins with the escape of a slave family from a Virginia plantation, and follows them on their arduous and dangerous journey north. But that story is chopped up by interspersing the Newton story, with the two stories being somewhat awkwardly held together by a Bible that Newton supposedly gave to a young boy he delivered into slavery in Charleston and that gets passed down eventually to his grandson (played by Cuba Gooding, Jr.) - who is the one leading his family to freedom more than a hundred years later. The problem with telling the story this way is that neither the story of the Underground Railroad or the story of Newton's conversion is told in the depth that it probably deserves - especially given that the movie is only about 90 minutes in length and so doesn't have a great deal of time to tell even one of the stories had it focused on just one) and so both stories are somewhat choppy.

So the blending of the stories is, as I said, awkward. At times this has a very heavy religious tone with a lot of religious themes (forgiveness, grace, heaven, etc.) That's appropriate in that black slaves really were inspired by Christian faith and that shouldn't be denied, but it seemed a bit too forced at times. There are a lot of hymns and spirituals used in this movie - to the point at which it sometimes seemed as if this was trying to be a musical of some sort. The emphasis on hymns led to at least one anachronism in the movie. With some knowledge of Christian hymnody I was puzzled by the fact that Newton's fiance was singing "It Is Well With My Soul" in church in 1748. That didn't seem right to me, so I quickly researched and, indeed, discovered that the hymn wasn't written until 1876. Somebody really should have checked that out. With so many songs there may have been other musical anachronisms, but that's the one that leaped out at me. I also thought the ending - while perhaps heartwarming - was a bit too far-fetched to be believable.

For all that, I liked the movie. It was very watchable and, as I said, it deals with important topics. It makes the point early on of slavery's brutality as a slave that helped the family escape is brutally beaten while the other slaves are forced to watch. This seems - from the closing captions - to be an attempt to link the Underground Railroad and the abolitionist movement of the 19th century with the problem of modern day slavery of various kinds. Those captions note that there are 29 million people (I'm not sure where that number came from, and I've actually seen estimates of close to 50 million) held in various kinds of slavery in the world today and encourages viewers to help eradicate it. By all means we should be doing what we can to achieve that, and if "Freedom" helps to shine some light on that problem, then it's serving a noble purpose. (6/10)

As an elementary music teacher that grew up in the church, I was surprised by the lack of historical research regarding the music chosen in this movie. Within 20 minutes, discrepancies musically began that bothered me as a music educator. The fact that John Newtons betrothed sang It Is Well in the church after leaning that her love would travel to Africa is completely impossible given that the year was 1748 and the song wasn't written until the late 1800's. I know this partially because of my childhood in the church and the fact that I later moved to Chicago as a young adult. The song was penned after the the great Chicago Fire, as a young lawyer lost much including his song.

Later, in 1856, as Cuba Goodings character is met by their second encounter, a duo sing I'm ON My Way (to Canaans Land), I am once again disappointed by The lack of historical accuracy as this song was penned by the great Mahalia Jackson. She wasn't born until 1911 (died 1972 in Illinois). Additionally, the song Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child is sung as a young boy's mother passes on the slave ship. This song wasn't composed until the late 1800's.

I can certainly understand the connections that these songs have in context to the movie. However, asa music history buff, they are plenty of historical songs that could have been easily used to convey the same message. Was there no one that could simply give this information ,that is so easily available, to the film people to provide a bit more accuracy to the film?

Freedom is visually stunning and almost a masterpiece. The Screenplay, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costumes, and Make Up are all top notch. Its also is a well edited film. The Original Score was ok but not great.

The artwork and scenery is breathtakingly filmed, and the acting tremendous. If the storyline occasionally stretches things a bit, just relax and enjoy what, is in essence, one of the best faith-based stories on film since 'Risen' and 'Hacksaw Ridge'.

9+

Cuba Gooding Jnr tries to resurrect his career and right away this begs two possible questions

"What career would that be ?"

Or

"Who is Cuba Gooding Jnr ?"

Oh come on guys , stop being so cruel . He hasn't done you any harm and if you sat through BOAT TRIP it's no ones fault but your own . That said this "Based on a true story" adventure is little bit cynical since it's obviously inspired by 12 YEARS A SLAVE though it's much less hard hitting . To be truthful it's not what some people have claimed as religious propaganda and certainly isn't a faith based movie in the same vein as GOD'S NOT DEAD . People in Virginia from era would indeed be evangelical bible bashers , so much so I have trouble believing that the head honcho of the posse hunting the escaped slaves makes claims he doesn't believe in God and seems invented to give black and white dichotomy on both a moral ad metaphysical level . Another annoying aspect is that it ironically plays up to racial stereotypes in that every black person who has ever lived has a lovely baritone singing voice and sing they do at every opportunity . In some ways FREEDOM cod be described as a Walt Disney equivalent of 12 YEARS A SLAVE but looking on the bright side at least we don't have Mel Gibson painting his face blue pretending to be a Scotsman

This is the worst movie I've seen in a long time,

Faith and religion are persistently rammed down your throat throughout the movie. The 2 stories were disjointed and i felt arbitrarily linked.

I don't understand why they choose to what seemed like worshiping John Newton (the captain of the ship delivering the slaves), it was like they were saying that he saved them by giving them his Bible but yet he still delivered his cargo of slaves which i feel conflicts with the intended purpose of the movie. Its like saying slavery is sufferable if you have religion.

The characters were unconvincing, simple and predictable with scenes that were so over dramatic it was cringe worthy.

I had to see this film after seeing 'The Islands'. I loved the secondary characters, Cuba and Sharon. They were genuine and passionate and marvelous. Cuba and William Sadler were wonderful together.

The music and the cinematography are what really make this film stand out...at least for me. I realize this is a minority view, but there it is.

Kudos!

As an elementary music teacher that grew up in the church, I was surprised by the lack of historical research regarding the music chosen in this movie. Within 20 minutes, discrepancies musically began that bothered me as a music educator. The fact that John Newtons betrothed sang It Is Well in the church after leaning that her love would travel to Africa is completely impossible given that the year was 1748 and the song wasn't written until the late 1800's. I know this partially because of my childhood in the church and the fact that I later moved to Chicago as a young adult. The song was penned after the the great Chicago Fire, as a young lawyer lost much including his song.

Later, in 1856, as Cuba Goodings character is met by their second encounter, a duo sing I'm ON My Way (to Canaans Land), I am once again disappointed by The lack of historical accuracy as this song was penned by the great Mahalia Jackson. She wasn't born until 1911 (died 1972 in Illinois).

As a music history buff ... Was there no one that could simply give this information ,that is so easily available, to the film people to provide a bit more accuracy to the film?

I am reminded that we are all slaves in this world, with Christ, but the true victory is freedom in Christ Jesus.

It's 1856 Virginia. A group of slaves is making a run for freedom. Samuel (Cuba Gooding Jr.) leads them on an epic journey on the underground railroad. The story of John Newton is recounted. In 1748, he is the Captain of a slave ship sailing from Africa to America bringing Samuel's ancestor.

This is a solid slavery tale although the 1748 story is less compelling. The 1856 story has a more compelling sense of danger. The production tries to be good but it is only slightly better than most TV movies. For example, the train is too modern, but that's hard to achieve without massive CGI which this movie does not have. At least, they do have a ship. This is sincere and solid work.

If you give points for trying and for a very sad and engaging basic idea this movie is trying to pull off, you might be more loose with it. And even think more of the movie than I did. And don't get me wrong, I don't dislike the movie, I gave it some extra points for trying, but not as many as some other on IMDb. And it's nice to see Cuba Gooding Jr. in a more serious role. He's a former Academy Award winner for crying out loud.

The acting is OK and the "story" moves on quite nicely, if at a slow pace at times. Handling slavery (no pun intended) and the story of those involved is never easy. Especially when it comes to an escape story too. This is based on real characters (one of the best things is in the end credits, when we get to know who was who and what they did), so you can give it Kudos for that too. Other movies have handled the nature of the movie better of course and more dramatic

What an incredible movie. It truly deserves to win 12 Oscars.

I just saw 'The Islands' in the theaters from the same writer and I'm shocked this film did not get a national theater release as well. It merited some theater release as I never heard of this film before. I'm glad 'The Islands' received a national theater release as it's just as good a film.

In my opinion this movie is insuperable in its genre and being a faith-based film is even more astounding.....

Many people regard a lot of films as "top class" but I always keep a little shelf in my mind for the films that I regard as the best films of all time - films that are simply timeless masterpieces. Welcome to the top of that shelf! There are certain criteria by which films are judged and greatness is only obtained when all the criteria are satisfied in full. FREEDOM is the greatest timeless masterpiece of cinema to date because it satisfies all these criteria: 1) Cinematography: the sweeping landscape photography of the Frontier combined with the subtle night-time photography earns top marks. Aside from the fact that Freedom should have won Oscars for Cinematography and editing, it also should have won the ASC award for Outstanding achievement in Cinematography - as well as a host of other industry recognition awards. In short - the cinematography is breathtaking.

2) Sound/Score: the score is one of the best ever written. Again, awards rained from the sky for magical and moving score that combined seamlessly with the film/story.

3) Screenplay: The dialogue and plot is magnificent. The film does not fall into the common plot formulas found in other films that attempt to pass themselves off as epics. The story combines as both of celebration of life and a somber rumination of the history of mankind. Also it being a MUSICAL?

One of the most underrated movies of our time I believe.

Good basic story, poorly written. Disjointed,stilted and just too much going on. They fail to make a deep connection between timelines. Poor acting. Don't bother to take a dive watching this.

Big fan of the filmmaker's work! I saw 'Slamma Jamma' in the theater and began to follow all his work.

A passionate tale of determination and romance. Like with all of Chey's work, every single character is so layered and complex. He takes time and devotion to give each character a sufficient amount of intricacy that we truly feel like we know these people and when one of them feels pain, we do as well. When one of them is joyous (the ship scene, for instance) our faces light up with glee.

As always for a Chey work, the performances are absolutely brilliant. Cuba delivers some of the best work of the decade. And the actor who played Newton was brilliant. Simply through their eyes we can see all of the pain and emotion searing through them. The right actors were definitely cast in this one. We never hear them shout or break down into a ten minute fit of crying and throwing objects across the room, but we see all of their anguish and torture simply through their eyes and facial expressions. It's a beautifully subtle way of showing emotion and really helped make the film the brilliant masterpiece that it is. I highly doubt that any other cast could have pulled it off so seamlessly.

10 out of 10.

Watching this movie I thought it was filmed on the 1980s which would might have excused the poor quality. The escspe route seemed too easy from everything i have read/studied about the Underground Railroad. At times it felt like a name dropping event, rather than an historical documentation of oeople and events. I grasped the connection between the two story lines though apparently others had problems with it. Niagara Falls, and the crossing was s big issue for me. A poor effort to show what that crossing would have actually been like. Filming in Lewiston would have been more accurate as so many crissed the river there, because it was well below the falls. I am currently writing an historical fiction based on an Abolitionist family in upstate New York and their involvement in the Underground Railroad. I certainly hope my story produces a better picture of what it was like, than this movie did.

JUST WATCHED It. I was going into this thinking it was gonna suck and I wouldn't know what's going on and be confused and bored. NO. I WAS WRONG. BEYOND FASCINATING. and that is coming from someone who has zero interest in anything slave-related. I didn't know anything about John Newton but I learned soooooo much in this movie. Not only was it interesting but the cinematography is absolutely stunning. This movie was made so well. I enjoyed this so much more than I expected. GO SEE THIS. I agree with the others 10+

Great movie... great music. True historical facts are revealed at the end. It's the first movie I've ever seen that's specifically about the Underground Railroad. Beautiful scenery and costuming. At times I felt that I was watching a Broadway show... which is a definite thumbs up. Don't listen to a negative review on this movie as the subject matter is too important! Some parts of the movie are tough to watch, for sure. Learning about the person that wrote "Amazing Grace" was fascinating. No spoilers here! You can't help but fall in love with Philip Boykin!! A great performance and a great voice! Bravo!! I'll definitely recommend this movie to friends. I'm a bit surprised I didn't hear of it when it came out. I guess it was a sleeper. (I've written 9 lines... my first review. I think IMDb should change it's requirement of 10 lines to leave a review. It's too much. Make it 6, 7, or 8 lines max.)