While this movie was based upon real-life events, the movie was released at a time when our country was (and still is) very racially divided (2016). The folks who made this film clearly were trying to toss gasoline on the race fire. They wanted to demonize white males for slavery, and in my opinion to agitate blacks who watched the movie.The Nat Turner rebellion occurred a long time ago (1831), and this film portrayed all white slave owners (except white women) as extremely cruel & openly evil against their slaves. It goes without saying that slavery was, and is, awful -- which is why white folks are the only ones who abolished it. However, brutally murdering white folks in cold blood is far worse, and the movie was told from the vantage point that brutally murdering random slave owners was completely justified. The final scene in the movie morphs into a group of black Union soldiers fighting the Civil War, and there's not a white male to be seen fighting. Nor is there any mention that white males in the US government were the ones ultimately responsible for abolishing slavery, and a great many white males gave their lives fighting the Civil War.If you're tired of watching movies that demonize white males, I wouldn't suggest that you watch this. All of the black slaves were portrayed as intelligent, articulate, well spoken, and well mannered, but the white males were portrayed as unkept, dim-witted, and evil.The acting was decent, but it was clear that the script was clearly manipulating the viewer's emotions to push a one-sided agenda.

Virginia, 1820s/30s. Nat Turner is a slave on a cotton plantation. Through his eyes we see the conditions the slaves have to live under, in particular, the brutality of the slave-owners. Due to having the rare privilege of being able to read, Nat is a Christian preacher. His ability to influence other slaves is used by the slave-owners to their own ends, and ultimately by Nat to fight back.Based on a true story, and produced by, directed by, written by and starring Nate Parker, this movie had the potential to be a powerful examination of the inhumanity of slavery. However, for the most part, it doesn't go anywhere new and is quite dull in its delivery. The first 70% or so of the movie would be only interesting to those who had never seen a movie or documentary on US slavery before. Pretty stock standard stuff, with one-dimensional characters and predictable plot. Quite clumsy at times too, with unnecessary symbolic imagery that is almost laughable. The final 30% sees the outcome of this brutality and is fairly interesting, with an ending that is reasonably powerful. However, it is underdeveloped and demonstrates how bad the pacing of the movie is. Instead of spending 70% on overdrawn setup and 30% on hasty conclusion, Parker should have built up the pace and spent more time on the outcome.On another note, the choice of title is interesting. The 1915 film The Birth of a Nation is one of the most controversial and divisive movies of all time. Directed by cinematic pioneer DW Griffith, on the one hand it is lauded as a seminal moment in movie history, due to its cinematographic innovations. However, it is also one of the most racist movies ever made, ending up as a pro-Ku Klux Klan propaganda campaign.If one of the aims of the 2016 The Birth of a Nation was to reclaim what the title means and set the record straight, fair enough. Just a pity the finished product doesn't come anywhere close to living up to that billing.Watch 12 Years a Slave instead.

This is a tear-jerking bio-pic of Nat Turner, a slave minister who lead an unsuccessful rebellion. The film starts with his anointing as a child and ends with Nina Simone singing "Strange Fruit". This is another installment of "man's inhumanity to man" series inspired by our history on this planet.With a successful slave revolt in Haiti, slave owners feared the same in the US. Nate Parker gives us an excellent performance, although "12 Years a Slave" was a better film. The original film "Birth of a Nation" was the first film to be shown at the White House. It's Reconstruction message brought about protest and a resurgence of the KKK. This film is only connected in name only.The whipping and killing scenes were brief and less graphic than what they could have been. We do get the idea that men were whipped and women were raped and beaten also.Guide: Brief nudity (Aja Naomi King)

It's quite strange to fathom at the time of writing, that many months on from the initial hype of The Birth of a Nation's Sundance appearance, where now controversial actor/director Nate Parker found his film to be an early year Oscar contender, that this film was ever talked about seriously as a film worthy of taking home golden statues and becoming a box office hit and after a lacking awards season and a box office run that barely saw the film make back its marketing costs, it seems as though The Birth of a Nation noise was just that and nothing more.It's hard to pinpoint just how much of an effect Parker's past misdemeanours or cloudy background had on Birth of a Nation's ability to transform the Sundance hype (where it was sold for a record amount of money to its distributor Fox Searchlight) into anything substantial and its likely it did play a large part in hampering its potential as a film audiences flocked to but at the end of the day it's also likely that those initial vocal supporters of the film realised that this Parker passion project in which he directs, writes, stars in and produces just isn't that accomplished of a film.The true story at the heart of Nation, that of slave preacher turned rebellion leader Nathanial Turner is a worthily famous one and while Parker and his co-writer Jean McGianni Celestin have taken certain liberties with the story for cinematic purposes, Nation just never gets us totally committed to the goings on in the narrative from Turner's romance with fellow slave Cherry, his commitment to God and the Bible or his eventual rebellion, they all feel like components of the film we should feel more for and while there's horrific scenes playing out before us (Parker should be commended for showing the true atrocities of the time and not shying away from them) that certainly aren't for the faint of heart, Nation's inability to connect us emotionally is a failing that can't be overcome.Much of this blame must be placed at the feet of Parker who has taken years to get this story to the big screen, his direction lacks polish with some uneasy surreal dream sequences and visions in particular shoddily done, his acting a little too forced and script work lacking in polish and had he perhaps handed over more control to another it may've allowed him time to nail the core of this story that feels half-baked, a college film masquerading as a Hollywood quality drama.Final Say – An important story to be told, a film with some strong individual moments and one that in the face of recent Hollywood controversies surrounding lack of diversity and colour representation a timely story too boot, Birth of Nation should never have been spoken about in the same sentence as Academy Awards and while this long gestating Parker project showcases certain abilities for the budding filmmaker/actor, there's still a long road for him to take before he makes a truly awards worthy film and a road likely that not remains blocked for him forever due to a past that will shadow him in Hollywood for the remains of his career.2 ½ uncomfortable sermons out of 5