'Emancipation' movie review: Self-important and ponderous, Will Smith's Oscar bait is dead on arrival

Will Smith perhaps irreversibly damaged his reputation when he decided to answer comedian Chris Rock's words with a blow during the Oscars ceremony earlier this year. That smack will likely reverberate through the actor's entire career. One can — and should —admire his utter commitment to his role in Antoine Fuqua's 'Emancipation', a film that purports to be a slavery drama but ends up feeling like a period-action film. But being a part of this neo-Blaxploitation film will not exactly do wonders for Smith's already shaky reputation.

Preceding the release, the actor had requested while speaking on several talk shows that the film should not be unfairly judged by his actions, and that several other people worked hard to make the movie. It was admirable, I thought. But even if the ghost of the slap did not hover over the film, it would still fail to pass muster. It is not a bad movie, mind you. There is enough emotion and pathos, I suspect,in Smith's performance alone to sell the movie to his fans. But Fuqua for some reason decided to direct it like an action-thriller, and yet in his heart wanted it to look and feel like a slavery drama. The result is a film without any identity, and it does not quite work as either.

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'Emancipation' is inspired by the life of one remarkable Peter, also known as Whipped Peter. An escaped slave who fled a plantation in Louisiana after hearing of Abraham Lincoln's emancipation proclamation and joined the Union Army to take on the Confederates. While not much is known about the man himself, an image of his back scarred with whip marks has survived, which was widely circulated by abolitionists.

Played by Smith, Peter's story in the film begins with him quoting the Bible to his wife and children, and saying at one point "God loves you." This is a recurring theme here, as Peter argues with other, less devout slaves over the existence of a benevolent, all-powerful deity watching over the world. Yes, he insists, He exists. He says that even as he suffers insults and whips from slavers, who incidentally invent Biblical verses to justify to the slaves the torment they inflict. Indeed, God works in mysterious ways. The Biblical theme does feel out of place here. Maybe this is the non-believer in me speaking, it would have been more compelling to make Peter a cynic after all the horrors he has witnessed.

In the first act, everything you would expect from a slave drama is here. Slavers liberally use the N-word, describe slaves in simian terms, keep them up tightly packed in cages like poultry, and of course how they are above the darker-skinned humans in the divine hierarchy. Nothing here is historically inaccurate, and it all happened. Humans have been horrible to each other almost throughout recorded history, and the slave trade is one of the most reprehensible and shameful things to ever happen. But 'Emancipation' often borders on gratuity. Slavery porn, I feel, is the term I am looking for.

A coherent film based on Whipped Peter's story could have been inspiring and rich with drama, but 'Emancipation' watches like a film that a hypothetical machine would churn out if it was instructed to manufacture the perfect Oscar bait. It is as though Smith kept the film as a second alternative to score an Oscar nomination if 'King Richard' did not succeed. It has that "prestige" look and often seems appears to be a bad parody of one of HBO's crime dramas. Visually, the film is nearly but not exactly black-and-white, another choice probably to give the film a pretentious aesthetic but that does not justify its presence.

'Emancipation' is neither pacey nor interesting enough to be a good action movie, it does have anything new to say about the nature of slavery and, well, emancipation, to be a good slave drama.

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