There's only one thing worse than a crap movie... And that's a crap movie that's four hours long.
Weighing in at a bum-numbing 231 minutes (plus intermission), Ron Maxwell's prequel to his 1993 Civil War epic Gettysburg sounds great. Just look at the cast: Robert Duvall, Jeff Daniels, Stephen Lang... However, it plays like the kind of mini-series that even C5 wouldn't touch.
With a pro-South perspective that's about as subtle as being clubbed with a bottle of Jack Daniels, this jingoistic apology for the slave-owning gentry is hard to stomach. And it's not just the politics. Cringe as Robert Duvall is out-acted by his fake beard, snigger at the naff CG landscapes and be prepared to fall asleep as 7,500 battlefield "re-enactors" take a break from their Sunday afternoon hobby to play gormless extras in the Battle Of Fredericksburg.
It's been 10 years since Maxwell last stood behind a camera. Let's hope it's 100 before he goes anywhere near one again.
