American Confederate

If you are looking for a main-stream movie based around the Civil War, and don't check the reviews first, you can expect to be seriously disappointed.

"How far can I throw this disk" disappointed.. It has the feel of a home movie produced by Civil War re-enactors. Costumes are generally pretty good, and the period equipment, at least to my eye, seems authentic and researched.

But it's in the actual 'Movie Making' that this production falls flat on it's face.

You kind of get the feeling that the entire crew would get a buzz every time they hear that someone actually bought a copy.

Apart from one or two exceptions, the bulk of the cast appear to have no acting experience whatso-ever, and those one or two exceptions manage to make the 'Bulk' seem even less skilled by comparison.

The film quality is as under-whelming as the performances and there is a clear absence of resource when it comes to just about every 'Behind the Camera' aspect required to make a movie.

That said, we need to keep things in perspective.

This isn't a Hollywood blockbuster.

I imagine the invoice for one day's supply of coffee for such a movie would dwarf the entire production budget of this endeavour.

It gives the impression of being made by a bunch of guys with a passion for the history, but absolutely no movie-making experience, and a budget equal to what they collectively found down the back of the sofa.

But at least they went out there and made one.

What did I do today?

Not much by comparison.

I have rarely seen such poor acting, with dense text from a third-rate play. I still can't believe Parker Stevenson wanted to work on this film. Wast of Money and Time.

When I saw the reviews at that time (2.x) I assumed the film had to have some redeeming quality. People were put-off by history, or some group was slighted. No, those review numbers were really accurate. There was no review then, so people needed some warning.

The production is in color sort of, and it's generally in focus. So much for the good parts. The budget was obviously low or non-existent. It is quickly obvious that locations were chosen and used so that no set preparation would be necessary. The a... behavior of the people, was unconvincing in the extreme. When one of them is "shot in the leg", even that is not convincing, nor is his escape.

In the next scene, he has walked to a makeshift hospital tent. The doctor and nurse/helper have ended an exhausting shift, but there is one person outside the five-man tent needing attention. Just about the time you're wondering where the pile of bodies is, the man with the .57 caliber slug in his leg shows up, and soon, we're told he's lost a lot of blood, but none of the blood wound up on his pant leg. The production LITERALLY did not afford fake blood. Later on, they discover the formula, but none of it ever gets on the surgeon.

There are "cavalry" men of various names, and they say things, but no character is developed to anywhere near the point where you caring about anyone in the slightest. The movie does not attempt to fill in the "backstory" of any battle or tell a story with an arc or vector of any kind.

Watched 'American Confederate'. Terrible movie. It tries to focus on a rebel captain of Hampton's Legion and a Union officer-Captain Falstaff of the 2nd Indiana Cavalry. The rebel captain is shown to be aggressive yet caring while Falstaff is painted as a butcher by shooting rebel wounded and prisoners. This would make for a simple plot, these two officers finding and clashing with one another on various battlefields that could turn into a vendetta. Except the two characters don't really cross paths in the movie other than Falstaff shooting two prisoners of Hampton's Legion at the beginning. It largely drops Falstaff from the movie. When he does it is random. In fact, the two officers don't confront each other at the end for a final duel.

From there the film just meanders from character to character doing something, but not driving a coherent plot. There's mention of a captured wagon train, but its quickly forgotten. The capture of Atlanta and its burning, but we don't see it other than a glow on the horizon.

The major problem with this movie was its lack of a coherent plot. Instead it just feels like a series of vignettes poorly tied together as many of these scenes don't compliment the next scene. Perhaps a major rewrite to the script is in order. You could have Falstaff and the rebel captain, I don't remember his name-that's how bad it was, set during the Siege of Atlanta. Falstaff is sent to intercept a Confederate train loaded with supplies bound for Atlanta. The rebel captain is tasked to guard it. You can have these two officers challenging each others wits and discipline in many encounters. Since Falstaff is shown to be a butcher, you can have him threaten or even execute prisoners if the rebels don't surrender, which they would refuse. And the movie can end with the train approaching the outskirts of Atlanta and one final attempt is made to destroy it. The train can make it into the city and helps the defenders hold out for four more months or it can be destroyed necessitating the decision to evacuate Atlanta. Either scenario would work. It would be a simple plot but a coherent plot.

Other production problems:

The battle of "Gettysburg" is shown with Falstaff ordering the evacuation of a hospital filled with Union wounded-except there are no wounded shown and the 2nd Indiana Cavalry, Falstaff says he's with, wasn't at Gettysburg. They were in the west for the Tullahoma Campaign. Also, the hospital is shown to be in the same position for Atlanta and the end of the war. In 2 years, it never moved!

The movie states that just after the battle of Resaca, Atlanta was captured and burned. It wasn't. It held for 4 more months.

The last is General Sherman. He is shown on the cover. With the name 'American Confederate' and his image, one can be confused as to its meaning. Perhaps they mean General Sherman is a rebel by breaking the normal conventions of warfare of the time by going to the heart of the South. But the movie is not about him, really at all. In fact, he only appears in the movie for, perhaps, two scenes totaling five minutes. So it's misleading as to whom the 'American Confederate' is.

Well, given the very low rating that this 2019 Western have been getting on IMDb, I must admit that I wasn't particularly thrilled about watching it. But still, it was a movie that I hadn't already seen before, plus it was centered around the American Civil War, so of course I had to watch it.

And believe you me, this movie was bad from an entertainment perspective. There was no red thread throughout the course of the entire movie, and everything felt like it was just a compilation of randomly shot scenes that were put together to make a movie. And it beats me what writer and director Christopher Forbes was thinking here with that approach to the movie. Surely, someone must have stopped at a point along the way and asked "Sir, why is there no coherency to what we are doing?"

The storyline was just utter rubbish. As I just mentioned above, there is not coherency to the storyline. It felt like I was watching a selection of endlessly random scenes.

As for the acting in the movie, well let's just say that the acting performances were dubious at best. So you should not expect to see any grand performances to match those seen in the 1993 "Gettysburg" or the 1989 "Glory".

The cutting and editing of the movie was just atrocious, and it felt like something performed on a high school amateur level. Yup, it was that bad.

What worked for the movie, however, was the costumes and the props. That was definitely something worth watching. But sadly, that was essentially all that "American Confederate" had going for it. That and the movie's cover, which was the reason why I picked up the movie.

If you enjoy movies that are set in the American Civil War, then you might want to skip on this movie, because it is a mess and a waste of time. I am rating "American Confederate" a generous two out of ten stars. I managed to sit through it, but this was an ordeal to get through, and I wasn't entertained nor enjoying what director Christopher Forbes served.