Emperor

Viewers must know up front that Shields Green was an escaped slave. That is the only historically accurate fact in the first half of the movie. The first half of the movie is the writer's imagination. Please don't take it as history. Green's association with F. Douglas is true, as is his association with J. Brown and the Harper's Ferry raid. And the end of the movie doesn't accurately depict Green's final fate. It's too bad that with so much rich Black history that Hollywood chooses to make stuff up. It's a disservice to history and to a people who deserve better. Much better. This is an entertaining movie, with adequate acting albeit mediocre writing. It would have been better if the critical scenes had been shot on location. Maybe the director was looking for Harper's Ferry in Virginia. Watch it, but don't take it seriously. Shields Green deserves better.

Bad script, bad directing and dreadful acting.. Cant think of one good thing to write about on this load of rubbish

Feels like a Saturday afternoon action adventure revenge tv show instead of a historical drama. The film has pretty good cinematography, location, settings, wardrobe, and a good cast. But the writing is poor. It never digs deep into the main character and the then political situation of the time. All it does it name drops and ads cameos of historical figures. Unfortunately the film is mostly fluff and little substance. It really had a lot of missed potential.

They took quite a lot of liberties with the beginning and end of the story, making up details of Shields Greens life and completely changing the outcome of his fight at the armory. But besides all the historical inaccuracies, if you just wanted to watch it for pure entertainment, the script was a bit weak, which made it hard for the actors to shine. Even though their were some big named actors, their performances were average due to the poor script, direction, and sets. It was enjoyable enough but could have been so much better, IMHO! 6.5

This is a very well done movie with superb acting. I loved the story which did not venture too far from the factual history of the event.

I found the movie authentic in representing this amazing piece oh History.