Glory (1989)

Star Rating: 3
Length of Film: 122 minutes
Director: Edward Zwick
Cast: Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, Morgan Freeman, Jihmi Kennedy, Andre Braugher, John Finn, Donovan Leitch, J.D. Cullum, Alan North, Bob Gunton, Cliff De Young, Christian Baskous
Oscars: Denzel Washington (actor in support role), Freddie Francis (photography), Donald O. Mitchell, Gregg Rudloff, Elliot Tyson, Russell Willliams (sound)
Oscar Nominations: Norman Garwood, Garrett Lewis (art direction), Steven Rosenblum (editing)



Colonel Robert Shaw (Matthew Broderick) a liberal blue blood is in charge of the first all black volunteer company. Colonel Shaw is accompanied by a dick, whom we do not like, Major Cabot Forbes (Cary Elwes).

Matthew Broderick

The other main characters of the movie are former slave Sargeant Major John Rawlins (Morgan Freeman) and Private Trip (Denzel Washington). Trip is the arrogant young black man who runs his mouth and gets himself in trouble. There's a scene where get he gets lashed in the back by a whip, while John Rawlins is the level headed, older gentleman with all the life experiences and is the "father figure" to all the young military men.

Morgan Freeman

Denzel Washington

The movie was quite boring in the beginning, it has been a month since I've watched this movie and all I can remember about the movie is how good my pint of Ben & Jerry's was. I was bored... I understand that in the beginning of the movie, you have to allow the audience to get to know the characters, but oh my goodness... the good stuff didn't happen until the last 15 minutes of the movie! Before the soldiers marched off to fight at Fort Wagner, they were eating dinner at the campground by fire and they sang a spiritual titled "Oh my Lord, Lord, Lord". As a music fanatic, I loved this song! This is the part of the movie where everything turned around for me. Here's a link to the Youtube video of this scene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K83kzZJ5v0&feature=related


The end battle scene at Fort Wagner was unbelieveably good! The only thing I did not like, was that it was at night, and it was hard to see everything, but you can't change history. When it comes to war movies, this is one of top ones I've seen. I've already watched Platoon, and was not impressed by it, this movie, I thought it was great, other than them spending too much damn time for the audience to get to know the characters.

Glory- #253 out of 1,001