Review of Glory

Glory was a great story wrapped in a tortilla that tasted too much like Ferris Bueller

To celebrate Memorial Day this year, I decided to watch Ferris Bueller ride a horse for 2 hours.

Glory is an excellent film. It won three Oscars, ignited (or at least added some gasoline to) the conversation on race in Hollywood movies, and introduced the world to Denzel Washington. And we must all thank you for that. But man, it was tough to get passed some of it to be able to appreciate it for what it was.

First, there was the most ridiculous soul patch in Hollywood history. I know Matthew Broderick has proven himself to be talented – especially on Broadway – and this was probably a great move for him to get out from under that Ferris Bueller thundercloud. But this was only 3 years after that movie and that’s a huge jump to expect us to make. Even watching it 30 years later, all I could see was Ferris Bueller trying to act serious. And why was he on a horse for over half the movie? Is that really how people just got around campus back then?

But if you could look passed him, the movie had some great things to say. Morgan Freeman, Denzel, and Andre Braugher did an excellent job representing black soldiers with three dynamically different personalities, backgrounds, and reasons for joining the fight. The dynamic between them was as compelling as the dynamic between each of them and the white folks who were in various stages of in charge.

But then there was that first fight scene. And I know this was a lot of years and a lot of technology ago, but did people seriously just stand 20 feet apart firing guns at each other and reloading for 20 seconds? There were no better ideas? That was war back then? Man, that’s brutal. And people wanted to do this? People still want to do this? I get that I’m a coward and not much of a patriot, but people seemed quite proud to be selected to march to their death. Man, I just don’t get war.

Which brings me to my favorite scene in the movie, where Denzel asks Broderick who wins? What is really going to change? At least for him. And of course the fact that this is a true story, with much of the voiceover coming from the actual letters written by Col. Robert Shaw also makes me appreciate the movie a lot more. And after speaking with a historian of some qualification, I have verified that soul patches were all the rage, soldiers did stand remarkably close just shooting at each other, and rich Boston folk rode their horses around just because they could.

So if I could score this movie based solely on my appreciate for it, rather than my enjoyment of it, I would probably score it a lot higher. But since nobody is making me do this, I won’t. I’ll do this.

5/10
Dustin Fisher