"Glory" (1989) - Movie Review

Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (Mathew Broderick) writes letters to his mother over the happenings around him and his experience during the American Civil War. He gets in to the battle field only to be survived upon laying unconscious. This sequence is to mark the brutality and severity of the war and it does not create it in first place. Considering the movie was made in 1989, the war sequences still do not make the impression as it supposed to. But the movie itself is not about war. It is the exploration of slaves finding their purpose, officers reviving their courage and a team fighting for recognition. While everything seems to be the right content essential for a film of historical drama, it does not make the scar of tragedy and honour it is supposed to. This does not mean that it is a bad movie. It is well made and there it ends with amnesia of emotions once it is over.

Colonel Shaw is leading one of the first U.S Army in the Civil War with entire African American men volunteering for the cause. They are treated equally but are within their bar set to themselves. Some of them realize the importance and right intent of the Colonel but some of the others are in denial. Private Trip (Denzel Washington) is one such soldier who seems to be in more content in hatred and rebelling that he takes each and every action of any white men as a mark of racism and unfairness. Colonel Shaw on the other hand is been tested on friendship and responsibility of treating every men equal irrespective of their friendliness to him, like that of Corporal Thomas Searles (Andy Braugher). But he is doing his duty and preparing them for the ultimate fight. It is not about the volunteering but it is the purpose and performance of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment as a whole. He knows that and hence trains them hard. The film explains the nature and obstacles in developing the regiment and how they create a name in the history.

I feel strongly bad for saying the movie is not up to the mark. It is one of the crucial turn over in the history of slavery. More than the American Civil War, the times at which slavery is considered as a norm and in those circumstances the migration towards abolishment would have been considered immoral and the film deals those in a situation of high tension. And while the slaves are put to work on menial labour, this is the point in which they are at their heights of excitement to prove their worth. This does not run in the story. The seriousness of this regiment is blindly conveyed. It fails to get under us to start hoping for the best to these men who have only faced derogatory comments and crude behaviour from their country men. Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman and Mathew Broderick bring in the flavour necessary for this movie. It is their chemistry in between them, which makes this movie fly a little bit above the air.

This movie is regarded as one of the best American Civil War movie. I never felt the zeal, passion or the high energy in the entire movie time. In fact even when the James Horner’s famous back ground score of “Charging Fort Wagner” played in the final sequence, it did not create the goose pumps and the great tragedy on the regiment gets through. And I was in the hopes of the regiment winning successfully which did not happen in reality. Hence the level of tragic moments in me should have been high and it did not happen that way.

The film is a well made but lacks the life. It has all the flavour and substance required for a film exploring the tough and cruel hatred which lived among the men in a time of war. Still director Edward Zwick does not employ those to the elevation of emotions which it should have kindled quite easily.