Free State of Jones movie review (2016) | Roger Ebert (2024)

Gary Ross’“Free State of Jones” is based on one of the most fascinating true stories of the Civil War. It tells of a rebellionagainst the Confederacy led by an angry farmer named Newton Knight, whoseragtag army of poor whites and escaped slaves declared a portion ofsoutheastern Mississippi, including Jones County, independent and loyal to theUnion. As inherently astonishing and powerful as this little-known episode is,it has not been well-served by Ross’ lumpy, ill-conceived script, which ends upwasting Matthew McConaughey’s terrific lead performance and other strong actingcontributions.

The film starts out with a searing reminder of the horrorsof the only war fought on American soil. We’re on a battlefield with straightlines of Confederate soldiers as they march resolutely toward the enemy andencounter blistering fire that fells one soldier after another. An orderly whotakes the wounded to a field hospital, Knight (McConaughey) gets an eyeful ofthe blood and agony that battle produces. Clearly, he’s already disgusted bythe suffering he sees, as well as being angered by a new law that exempts menwho own more than 20 slaves from military service. As one of his disaffectedfellow soldiers says, it’s “a rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight.”

When a teenage kinsman shows up to fight and is soon killed, Knight deserts from his company to take the boy’s bodyhome, thereby putting himself at risk for capture and execution. On homeground, he’s among people who’ve been victimized by the Confederacy’s “tax inkind” law, which allows the South’s armies to requisition goods, food andlivestock from civilians, who are often left starving and destitute as aresult. He also finds his wife Serena (Keri Russell) tending their son who isterribly ill. No doctor is available, but a female slave from a nearbyplantation named Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) applies herbal remedies that lift theboy’s fever.

Eventually, unable to hide at home, Knight escapes into theswamp, where he joins a small group of runaway slaves in an enclave that’seffectively impenetrable by outsiders. Before long, these fugitives are joinedby others, both black and white. Though the film makes note of the racism thatoccasionally roils the makeshift community, the group’s desperate circ*mstancesobviously dictate a modicum of solidarity.

While there’s some dramatic interest in this set-up to themain story, it’s a measure of the plodding nature of Ross’ screenplay that ittakes a full hour before the film’s real action commences. That happens whenthe Confederate command becomes alarmed at the renegades Knight is leading andsends soldiers to deal with them. But Knight and company have assembled theirown arsenal and are ready for battle. They fight and win. And keep winning,even staging a surprise attack on the Confederate forces at a funeral, whereKnight pursues and kills the rebel commander (brilliantly played by ThomasFrancis Murphy).

From there, Knight’s men manage to take over all or part ofseveral counties and, after fending off the substantial Confederate forces sentto subdue them, declare a “Free State of Jones” under the stars and stripes.This is near the end of the war but, for reasons not explained, General Shermandeclines to support them, so the period of self-government lasts until theConfederacy collapses and the union is restored.

That would make a good ending of the story, but it’s notwhat happens here. If the film’s first hour is needlessly slow and protracted,its last half-hour proves to be an unfocused patchwork of scenes that seemdesigned to prove only that Reconstruction was an even bigger drag than war.First, rebels like the local plantation owner pledge allegiance to the union,have their citizenships restored, and quickly move to deliver freed blacks intonew forms of servitude, even as the Ku Klux Klan arises to keep them fromvoting. Newton joins his black comrades in resisting these moves, and meanwhiledefies local mores by living with wife Serena and common-law wife Rachel, whoboth bear several children each for him. (Though the film doesn’t show it, theKnights’ unconventional lifestyle made them outcasts to both blacks and white.)

There’s worthwhile history here, to be sure, but some ofit’s tedious while other parts are dubious (e.g., a title tells us that in1875-76 federal forces were withdrawn from Mississippi even as “Klan activitywas on the rise”; in reality, the Klan was effectively suppressed by actionsthe federal government took in the early 1870s). Eventually, the film’s storyfeels like it just peters out, without reaching any discernible dramatic orthematic point.

Another flaw in Ross’ screenplay is a subplot set during theJim Crow era, several decades after the Civil War, when one of Knight’s maledescendants is on trial for violating Mississippi’s anti-miscegenation laws bymarrying a white woman (the prosecution charges he was descended from Rachel,which gives him enough black blood to qualify as black under the law). Thoughperhaps an interesting footnote to the main story, this digressive thread feelsentirely unnecessary and dispensable.

If his screenwriting is problematic in ways large and small,Ross is on much more solid ground in the generally very fine work he gets fromhis cast. Long-haired and bearded, McConaughey makes Knight a man full ofrighteous fire, but also thoughtful and as restrained as circ*mstances allow.Russell gives Serena a flinty edge, while Mbatha-Raw imbues Rachel with bothdignity and quiet resilience. Other stand-out performances come from BillTangradi as Confederate baddie Lt. Barbour and Mahershala Ali as MosesWashington, a former slave who becomes a political activist after the war.