Starring Anthony Hopkins, Matthew McConaughey, Morgan Freeman and Djimon Hounsou Directed by Steven Spielberg Rated R with intense but historically accurate violence Running time 155 minutes Jack gives this film a rating of 10 out of 10

(Dec. 19, 1997) -- Steven Spielberg's Amistad is a potent, finely crafted drama that explores -- better than any film to date -- the injustices and horror of slavery and the seeds of American civil rights legislation.

Based on a little-known but important chapter in our history, Amistad tells of a bloody revolt of African captives on a Spanish slave ship off the coast of America in 1839, and the investigations and trials that followed. It concludes with a precedent-setting argument by aging former president John Quincy Adams before the U.S. Supreme Court.

At issue: The status of the slave rebels as either sub-human property with no rights of self-defense and self-determination or as free men with every right to fight for the chance to return to their native West Africa.

Anthony Hopkins stars as Adams, Matthew McConaughey plays a young real estate attorney who initially takes the Africans' case, and Morgan Freeman is a free black abolitionist. But despite this prestigious, talented cast, newcomer Djimon Hounsou dominates the film with his charismatic portrait of the leader of the slave rebellion.

Spielberg directs with precision and passion from the opening shot: An intense close-up of bare and bloodied fingers trying to scratch free a bolt holding slave chains to a deck.

The director holds nothing back in the violent mutiny that follows, as the Africans rampage through a dark, turbulent storm, killing all but two of their white captors. But this bloodbath is more than balanced by Spielberg's relentlessly honest flashback sequence later in the film that depicts the inhumane horrors of every day life on a slave ship.

Viewers will never forget the black men and women chained to rocks and thrown overboard, simply because the ship is running behind schedule; or the woman who grabs her child and jumps into the sea, rather than tolerate another moment in hell.

But this Hollywood master of the visual also understands the importance of language; Amistad includes riveting courtroom arguments and richly detailed period conversation among its various lawyers, abolitionists, slave dealers and ship owners.

More uniquely, Spielberg never skirts a complex issue -- the inability of the African prisoners to speak or understand our language. Indeed, the director embraces it. Much time is spent trying to find and use interpretors, and trying to teach the leader of the Africans enough English to understand the proceedings that'll so deeply affect his future.

For these 53 Africans, the investigations and court appearances make as much sense as we'd experience on trial on Mars -- and Spielberg and screenwriter David Franzoni use that confusion to further enhance the gulf between the Africans and the Americans.

Beyond its important central issue, Amistad also portrays a segment of the American past rarely seen on screen -- the early 19th century. (Go ahead, name one film depicting Martin Van Buren in the White House.) Films regularly explore the Civil War period and the 1880s of the Old West, but never delve into these earlier years, even though the roots of Civil War and and today's on-going civil rights issues are clearly evident.

Thus, much credit must also go to production designer Rick Carter and costume designer Ruth E. Carter for their research and re-creations in bringing the period to life. Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (a Schindler's List Oscar winner) further stylize the look with muted to tones, minimal colors and low lighting.

Performances in the film are uniformly strong. McConaughey plays attorney Baldwin as rough-hewn and rumpled; the aptly named Freeman conveys the pain of a free black man trying to help other blacks who are deprived of such freedom; and Hopkins as seldom been better as a reluctant, aged courtroom warrior.

But the heart of Amistad lies in the empassioned portrayal by Djimon Hounsou as Cinque, the leader of the slave rebellion. A West African native, raised in France and currently living in Los Angeles, Hounsou conveys intense power and clarity, while seldom speaking a word of English.

Hopefully, he'll be rewarded with one of the several Oscar nominations this film should receive.

Don't be sidetracked by the on-going legal debate about whether aspects of Amistad were derived from an uncredited book. The fact remains that Spielberg and producer Debbie Allen have shown a long-overdue spotlight on an engrossing, important moment in history that gets to the foundation of America.

Amistad is as important to our understanding of slavery as his Schindler's List was to the holocaust. And just as painfully powerful.