"Free State of Jones" Topic

I am interested in seeing this movie. Hopefully it will be a good Civil War film. However, I do have to chuckle. Newton Knight is the hero of the film leading the resistance to the Confederacy during the Civil War. He was 24 yrs old when the war started. The actor playing him, Matthew McConaughey, is 46 yrs old. Couldn't one of have found a younger actor to play the role? McConaughey is twice the age of Knight!

Matthew's "people" probably bought the rights or had someone write up a treatment for him as a star vehicle.
That's what Hollywood is all about these days.

Expect little and you won't be disappointed.

That's what Hollywood is all about these days.

That's what Hollywood has ALWAYS been about.

Ya got anything to back that up, Winston?
And as for age, well I remember very well people bitchin up a storm about M. Broderick playing Shaw when it came out. Too young! How could old vets take orders from a boy? Had they had the smallest bit of sense they could have done a bit of research & found out he was a dead ringer for Shaw. But folks would rather complain than fact check. "Expect little and you won't be disappointed." Could be true. Could be the best ACW movie ever made. Go see it & make up your own mind Inkpaduta. Then, let me know!

Um, Hollywood has ALWAYS cast stars they wanted (and who would bring in big crowds of audiences) regardless of their age differences to the characters they portray. Big whoop. It's called ACTING.

If that is the largest historical howler in the film we should be well pleased.

At least it has them using rifles and not just harsh language.

It's good fodder for a movie, but I wouldn't bet a nickel the moralizing (along with the transposition of a 21st century mindset) won't be dialed up to eleven. It's just too easy a target.

It'll probably make "Dances With Wolves" look subtle.

:)

Indeed.

Dances with Wolves was subtle so much so it brought on Water World and the Postman, boy so much subtlety I'm all subtlety'ed out. I want war movies not some modern pinstripe morality disguised as war movies, good guys, bad guys and lots of pyrotechnics, oh and the same thing with cowboy movies, black hats, white hats, strapped down leg irons, jingling spurs and high noon. Sh+t I miss them good ol days of bioscope entertainment.

Free State also covers reconstruction, so another 20 years or so after the war. So he has to play somoone from their mid 20s to late 40s.

Don't forget an extremely heavy looking John Wayne playing a 28 year younger Lt Colonel Vandervoort in the Longest Day. As much as I love John Wayne I could never take him seriously in that part

> Don't forget an extremely heavy looking John Wayne playing a 28 year younger Lt Colonel Vandervoort in the Longest Day.

Or that old guy they got to play Audie Murphy in "To Hell and Back", THAT guy was easily 10+ years older than Audie Murphy was in WWII…

Dynaman8789 for the WIN !!

Saw it last night. It was a bit ponderous but a good story. It was authentic for the most part--too many kepis and forage caps on the Confederates. Nice battle at the beginning--supposedly Corinth but more like Petersburg. It was filmed in Louisiana not far from here. A big Southern mansion featured repeatedly. There was never anything like that in Jones county.

hahahaha, High Five given to Dynaman8789!!! lol

Yeah. Shut down this thread. Dynaman wins going away.

The movie is about more than the ACW, it carries on into Reconstruction, when Knight, of course, would have been older. He died in 1922.