In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.

steven spielberg 's " amistad , " which is based on the true story of a group of africans who revolted on board a slave ship , then were captured and taken to america where a legal dispute ensued over who " owned " them , is concerned with several different aspects of this story .
first , the film addresses the issue of the inherent evils of slavery .
second , it deals with the historical involvement of several american politicians in the case , including president martin van buren and former president john quincy adams ( anthony hopkins ) .
last , and most importantly , it examines the cultural confusion experienced by the africans who were forced into slavery and the damage done to their native culture in africa by the slave trade .
" amistad " succeeds at least partly with all three of these elements .
i have to admit that i was a little skeptical as to how much i could really get out of another " anti - slavery " movie .
having seen several other movies and documentaries about slavery , i doubted that there was much i did n't already know about it .
fortunately , i turned out to be wrong .
for one thing , spielberg 's camera never once gets near a southern plantation and instead sticks to the slave ships and the slave traders ' operations in africa , so " amistad " was dealing with a different part of the history of slavery from the very beginning .
and some of the images here are , in fact , much more harrowing than what we usually see in movies about slavery .
one scene in the middle , in which the crew of a slave ship dispose of some of their " excess " slaves by throwing them overboard to drown , has to be one of the most disturbing film images of the year .
spielberg digs farther into the evils of slavery than i was expecting he would , and in fact he probably goes about as far as a movie director can without getting an nc-17 rating .
the stark suffering of the africans is contrasted sharply with the shallow luxury of the politicians , such as president van buren and queen isabella of spain , whose naval officers were involved in the legal dispute and who was only a small child at the time .
exposing politicians as narrow - minded , opportunistic hypocrites is fairly standard stuff , of course , but spielberg and writer david franzoni
do it well enough that it still comes off as something more than just a simple exercise in audience manipulation .
the film also examines the contentious nature of the slavery issue at the time , such that john quincy adams ( and probably other politicians like him ) , who clearly disapproved of the practice , was reluctant to get involved in the case until it was appealed all the way to the supreme court .
the biggest success of " amistad " is probably the characterization of cinque ( djimon hounsou ) , who emerges as the de facto leader of the kidnapped africans and struggles to communicate with baldwin ( matthew mcconaughey ) , the lawyer who represents them in court .
through cinque , we are given a window into the native culture , as he and the displaced africans try to explain to the prison guards what they need for a proper burial of a dead tribe member , or find an illustrated version of the bible and try to understand the story of jesus christ .
cinque sees the dispute with a clarity and simplicity that , again , contrasts with the technicalities and mechanics of the legal process and of the political squabbles .
"
what kind of country is this , where laws ' almost ' work ?
"
he asks baldwin in bewilderment , when he learns that the case must be re - tried before the supreme court .
spielberg 's direction tends a little bit towards the manipulative side at times , such as when he adds a heavy orchestral swell to cinque 's angry outburst in the court room .
still , there is n't enough of this for it to be a serious problem .
the main flaw in this film , which prevents it from earning four stars , is that it seems like spielberg and franzoni ca n't quite handle all of these issues at the same time , so instead they settle for addressing each one separately and simply editing the results into the same movie .
this summer 's contact , for example , dealt with several issues at once , but each of them was somehow present in almost every scene and , most importantly , all of them were resolved at once .
" amistad " tries to pull it all together in the end with a speech from adams , but it somehow feels a little forced , and in any case the speech itself , which lasts almost fifteen minutes , wears out its welcome about halfway through .
perhaps the best way to describe it is this :
" amistad " is three four star films edited into one .
almost every individual scene works , but the final product is lacking the necessary focus and coherence , and thus is less than the sum of its parts .
however , i ca n't honestly say how it could have been done differently , and in any case the story comes through with enough raw emotional power that it is still a very good film , and thus
i recommend it to anyone who can handle the disturbing imagery .
P

" saving silverman " is a good example of a good comedy gone bad
.
as a love story it is good , however as a comedy
it falls flat on it 's face
.
i think throughout the short 90 minutes i laughed a total of seven times . . .
and those were just chuckles at the most !
the movie does n't have the oomph to make it a great movie , and does n't have the script to make it a funny movie .
wayne lefessier ( steven zahn ) ,
j .
d .
mcnugent
( jack black ) , and darren silverman ( jason biggs ) have grown up all their lives together , they have been best friends forever and vow to stay close till the end .
while in a bar after doing a show with their band , based on their love of neil diamond , darren meets a young woman named judith ( amanda peet ) whom he instantly falls for .
wayne and j .
d . however think differently and when judith tells darren that he can never see his friends again
, it 's up to wayne and
j . d . to try and begin saving silverman .
the performances are topnotch and
surprisingly , they are what keep the movie afloat .
jason biggs right off the flop " loser " does an ok job playing silverman , but he is stale and flat at times .
steve zahn is perfect in the role of wayne lefessier , and even though the movie is about silverman , lefessier is really the main character and the narrator of the movie itself .
jack black is well jack black , and he does an all right job as j .
d .
but he is n't as funny as he has been in the past .
amanda peet plays the ultimate bitch as judith , and neil diamond plays neil diamond ( he 's better at singing than acting ) .
anyway the performances in the film are good , but it 's too bad the script is n't .
speaking of script , hank nelkan 's choppy script is not only badly written , but not funny enough even for an episode of sesame street .
the trailer for the movie , as with most movies gives away everything that happens in the movie , especially the funniest parts .
somewhere " saving silverman " was meant to be a good movie , and it could have been , but alas in the end it was n't .
dennis dugan 's direction is all right , he adds a few directorial touches here
and there , nothing special being a simple comedy .
" saving silverman " is a perfectly bad movie in more ways than one .
it has a great cast , a good director and a sweet story .
. .
it 's just too bad
it has a bad script and is all together a bad movie .
N

out of sight director steven sorderbergh baffles the hell out of us
all in the limey , a cold , uninvolving , confusing new thriller .
though the plot description may at first seem like it came from the pen of elmore leonard ( author of out of sight , as well as jackie brown , get shorty and pulp fiction ) , after you watch it , you realize that it 's not nearly good enough . in an aggressively non - linear fashion , the limey ( li * mey , noun : an english gentleman ) tells the story of wilson ( terrence stamp ) , a british ex - con just released from a 9 year stint in prison for armed robbery .
he has come to the us to seek vengeance for the death of his daughter jenny .
he does n't know much about the circumstances of her demise , all he has is a name : terry valentine .
valentine was jenny 's former boyfriend , a wealthy and corrupt record executive .
he 's played by peter fonda , in his first major role since the terrific ulee 's gold in 1997 . seeking valentine 's reclusive place of residence turns out to be no easy task for wilson .
he finally finds the impressive abode high in the mountains and sneaks in just as valentine is having a big party .
he winds up breaking his cover eventually , setting off valentine 's head of security and valentine himself , who decides to run for it .
what a mess .
i have no problem
when films refuse to be constricted by the linearity of time -- pulp fiction , which twisted time every which way , was a masterpiece -- but i do take exception to movies that decide to play around with it for no reason other than to confuse the viewer .
the limey does exactly that .
the plot is permeated with flashbacks , flash - forwards and what can only be described as random time - travel
, without any evident purpose .
there is no method to this movie 's madness .
it uses a fancy way to tell a story that would be better off told more conventionally and more comprehendably .
the plot is n't particularly interesting in the first place : traditional , mildly hackneyed and not very involving .
this is a sort of brooding film -- our protagonist does n't speak much and the action sequences are done with an annoyingly perfunctory attitude .
i felt like the director was n't very interested in the proceedings himself , almost like he made this film for a paycheck .
ditto for the editing , which seems to be deliberately sloppy and unpleasant .
sixties icon terrence stamp manages to at least be menacing as the aging criminal .
he 's not much in the way of stature
but he has a surprisingly imposing physical presence that works to his advantage here .
peter fonda is an unbelievably underrated actor : he 's shy , quiet but always effective .
he 's adept at conveying emotions through speech rather than expression : his feelings do n't always show on his face by you can always tell what they are .
this is basically a conventional thriller told in a pretentiously bizarre fashion .
why soderbergh could n't just parrot down and tell a story , i do n't know , but what he does do certainly does n't work .
the result is a wild cornucopia of images that amount to precisely nil
-- even the action scenes do n't work .
1999 may have signified the death of the traditional act one - act two - act three storyline , but obviously some movies have not yet transcended it .
shall we go back to basics ?

N

