"The Butler" far surpassed my expectations. I expected a cavalcade of stars stealing the show and offering no depth, but it was not that way at all. The focus is always on Forest Whitaker as the butler and he is brilliant.
The movie starts out on a plantation near Macon GA where the main character learned about the powerlessness of blacks in America in the early 1900's. But an elderly white woman taught him the skills of serving white folks in a no nonsense manner that eventually gave him skills to serve in the White House.
Years pass and a conflict grows between the butler and his elder son. We see the events of the Civil Rights Era unfold with father and son taking opposing positions on how to gain equality. The scenes of the Freedom Riders and other events of that era are very powerful. They show the horror of those events in a way seldom seen on film until now.
"The Butler" is brilliantly acted and filmed. It is a great pleasure to watch as it has many joyful and fun moments in it, but above all it is a true story that should never be forgotten. For young people it is an excellent history lesson, and for older persons it is a great opportunity to see some events which we read about but never experienced viscerally, such as the sit-in protests, which were never covered well in mainstream media. Media showed groups of black students sitting at restaurants in the white sections. They didn't show them getting beaten by white thugs who came after the cameras left.
Some reviewers of this film clearly don't get the film at all. I can't imagine how they fail to see this as anything but one of the best movies of recent years. That it is.
The movie starts out on a plantation near Macon GA where the main character learned about the powerlessness of blacks in America in the early 1900's. But an elderly white woman taught him the skills of serving white folks in a no nonsense manner that eventually gave him skills to serve in the White House.
Years pass and a conflict grows between the butler and his elder son. We see the events of the Civil Rights Era unfold with father and son taking opposing positions on how to gain equality. The scenes of the Freedom Riders and other events of that era are very powerful. They show the horror of those events in a way seldom seen on film until now.
"The Butler" is brilliantly acted and filmed. It is a great pleasure to watch as it has many joyful and fun moments in it, but above all it is a true story that should never be forgotten. For young people it is an excellent history lesson, and for older persons it is a great opportunity to see some events which we read about but never experienced viscerally, such as the sit-in protests, which were never covered well in mainstream media. Media showed groups of black students sitting at restaurants in the white sections. They didn't show them getting beaten by white thugs who came after the cameras left.
Some reviewers of this film clearly don't get the film at all. I can't imagine how they fail to see this as anything but one of the best movies of recent years. That it is.