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Amistad is about a mutiny in 1839 aboard a slave ship, La Amistad, which eventually comes to port in New England. The West Africans who have commandeered the ship are taken into custody and the plot revolves around who "owns" them or if, indeed, they should be freed. This sets up the main event of the film, a courtroom drama about rights and origins, with the required flashbacks to the voyage and the gruesome conditions aboard the ship. The problem with this approach is that we learn less about the real conditions of slavery and instead focus on the more sanitized conditions surrounding the courtroom. In addition, we get a film which is largely about the efforts of the whites battling the case and much less about the struggles of the Africans themselves.
There are too many strands in the film which lead to no-where. At one point Cinque makes an interesting point of international law that might help the case. While the legal minds are inspired by his insight and initiative, the idea......

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Approximate Word Count: 636
Approximate Pages: 3 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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