Yep as any slaves did during that time, very tragic. I always wondered what happened to the real person afterwards. Same with the women whose children were sold off.

Why didn't he just walk to the end of the driveway and say "F*** that job!"

Yeah that seemed to work out perfect for Kunta

Did the solution to the protagonist's problem seem to come too easily for anyone else here?

I didn't like it. I am sure it is technically a good film and many others would like it, but it wasn't for me. It was too hard work, too frustrating and depressing, and I felt like I had seen the same thing a dozen times before, not just from Amistad type stuff but other stories that were kinda/sorta similar too. For example I saw "Ray" recently about Ray Charles, and I found that far better. It has the struggle story of a poor black guy coming from nothing and overcoming it, and he was blind too! But I could at least relate to the characters, I have a deep interest in music, the star wasn't a typical hero and did many bad things, the other characters were really interesting, and it basically wasn't crushingly depressing.

@Satch_the_man said:

Did the solution to the protagonist's problem seem to come too easily for anyone else here?

SPOILERS AHEAD

I found it awkward too. Not so much the fact that a white man eventually helped him, but :

1. there is almost no buildup in the reciprocal trust required, especially given Solomon's past experiences, which would make this part at best rushed.
2. Brass/Brad's presence in this hostile environment, with his progressist political preaching and stance, and promptness to give his individual help, came off as idealized to say the least.

The film was reasonable, but it didn't cover the passage of time very well in my opinion. It's hard to judge as I'm not familiar with the source material of the book. But yes, just another adequate Hollywood production that gets certain quarters of the film press overly excited.

@microscope said:

I didn't like it. I am sure it is technically a good film and many others would like it, but it wasn't for me. It was too hard work, too frustrating and depressing, and I felt like I had seen the same thing a dozen times before, not just from Amistad type stuff but other stories that were kinda/sorta similar too. For example I saw "Ray" recently about Ray Charles, and I found that far better. It has the struggle story of a poor black guy coming from nothing and overcoming it, and he was blind too! But I could at least relate to the characters, I have a deep interest in music, the star wasn't a typical hero and did many bad things, the other characters were really interesting, and it basically wasn't crushingly depressing.

I couldn't take more than 15 mins for that reason, "too hard work, too frustrating and depressing". I had high hopes after seeing all the awards it won that it would provide a different approach, not just the predictable formula. Y'know: spend 90% of the runtime making the audience feel awful, then tack on a positive message at the end. But it sounds like that's exactly what we get here.

Come to think of it, director Steve McQueen's other film Hunger (2008) took the same approach about the Irish hunger strikers - rather than give us anything particularly insightful or enriching, it focused on endless depressing scenes of the prisoners' emaciation and slow horrific deaths. It's really just feel-bad porn.