TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

BallWubba Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Megamind To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

chaswe-28402 Dynamic action, riding, shooting and killing, for about the first half hour, even though I couldn't properly tell who was who, but then it seemed to slow down and peter out into nothing much, involving a lot of tediously uninteresting talk. What a relief to read the negative reviews, and note the low rating. I was afraid I was missing something, since I couldn't be bothered to keep watching after the first hour or so. Nothing seemed to happen, at considerable length. I skipped a lot, and it still felt as if I'd seen everything. I registered a baby and a shotgun wedding.Maguire, who was playing the lead character, because of his manner and the shape of his face and eyes, seemed to be half asleep most of the time. Several of the characters were shown either sleeping, lying down, or just waking up, dressing or undressing. They were difficult to tell apart. Maguire didn't appear to initiate any action: things were simply happening to him. The sound was bad on my disc, and there were no sub-titles to help me discover what was going on. After the violent opening, the whole thing became passively pointless and slow. What was the meaning of the title ? Rave reviews on the disc cover.

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.