Ride with the Devil (1999) -R- DVD Directed by: Ang Lee
Written by: James Schamus
Adapted from the novel by: Daniel Woodrell
Starring: Toby Maguire, Skeet Ulrich, Jewel Kilcher,
Jeffrey Wright
August 11, 2000
The Southern Devil
by Judd TaylorThe title of Ang Lee's latest film Ride with the
Devil is fitting because that is what the audience gets to do.
We watch the innocence of the civil war, of youth being
slaughtered on the battle field. The only problem is, we see
the war from the southern point of view, and are supposed
to sympathize with these characters. The south, in a sense,
is the devil, fighting for slavery, the right to possess another
human being.
After their town is slaughtered by the north, Jake
Roedel and Jack Bull Chiles lead a gang of outlaws, who
won't join the Southern army. They pose as Northern
soldiers and ambush the northern army, before being
ambushed themselves.
These young men in their 20’s don't seem to know
what their fighting for though. Mr. Evans put it best when
he talked about how the north would win because their
fighting for moral human rights, whereas the south is just
fighting for property. Roedel and Chiles never seem to
address what their fighting for. They're both clearly racist,
but are they really fighting for the south's right to keep
slavery? That seems to be the theme of this film, or the
point Lee was trying to get across. The boys in the south
were just as innocent as those of the north.
The problem is I don't buy that. They knew what
they were fighting for, they were fighting for slavery.
Come on, how naive could they have been? And Daniel
Holt’s character doesn't make any sense either. He's a
black man fighting with these boys because his master
freed him. His wants to eventually find his mother, who
was sold into slavery, yet he's fighting the north who wants
to free the slaves. It's just not clicking with me.
Glory told the story of the prejudices of the north
against the black soldiers who were fighting the war, and
that made sense. The people of the north during the Civil
War were against slavery, but they were still racist, they
still weren't ready to desegregate society and see everyone
as equals.
Sure, Holt befriends Roeder and we identify with
him because of his sympathy for the people in the letters
Roeder reads him. I still can't see why he would be
fighting for the south. Aside from the story though, the
film is really shot beautifully.
The cinematography of the entire film is astounding, but more specifically the war scenes. Lee concentrates more on the battle, rather than following only the main characters in the battle, which many war films suffer from. These battle scenes are realistic and gory.
Jewel of course makes her acting debut here. She
plays Sue Lee Shelly who ends up being almost like
Susannah (Julia Ormond) from Legends of the Fall. Both
main characters fall in love with her. Jewel's not all that
bad as an actress, but the scenes with her and Skeet Ulrich
just don't work; they seem forced.
Aside from his character flaws, Jeffery Wright
hands in an emotional performance as Holt. And Toby
Maguire is good, as always, in his second film with Lee,
their first being The Ice Storm.
Ride with the Devil leaves me with mixed feelings.
The war scenes are great, but they're also few and far
between. The character flaws and Lee's failure to
convince me of where our sympathies are supposed to lie make this film a flawed war epic.DVD Features
Ride with the Devil is presented in Widescreen,
which is the only way to view this film. Jewel's music
video, “What's Simple is True,” is a good and the song is
catchy. The production notes are interesting, especially to
read about Ang Lee.
I was very disappointed though that there is no
commentary track. This would help explain Lee's
intentions for the film. It just goes to show they didn't
spend much time on this DVD.Recommended Alternatives: The Ice Storm (d: Lee), Glory
-Reviewed on DVD (on Video also)-
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