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Writer's pictureKyle Bain

Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013)

I took one look at this film and imagined a film that would lack the ability to keep my attention. I imagined that this film would be boring and that, as a whole, I would struggle to find positives. This film, however, is the perfect example of why not to judge a book by its cover. While I thought that the film, in general, moved at a slower pace than I would have liked, I thought that it suited the storyline. I thought this film was incredibly informative and that all of the information provided was interesting and accurate. I thought that Forest Whitaker’s performance was utterly phenomenal and completely believable. The list of incredible actors in this film goes on and on, beginning with Hollywood favorites such as Terrence Howard and ending with lesser known, but still fantastic, Colman Domingo. These two, and everyone in between, did a superb job of portraying their characters (characters the were meant to provide the audience with information regarding powerful movements and difficult times in American history). I thought that the choices of actors for the US Presidents in this film were very interesting. I thought that the casting directors succeeded, incredibly, in giving the audience actors that truly made them believe the actors were who they were supposed to be. Robin Williams as Dwight D. Eisenhower, James Marsden as John F. Kennedy, Liev Schreiber as Lyndon B. Johnson, John Cusack and Richard Nixon and Alan Rickman as Ronald Reagan were strange, yet eerily convincing versions of their respective characters. Along with these choices, I thought that possibly the most interesting casting choice was David Oyelowo as Louis Gaines. It was interesting due to the fact that at the time of the first scene Oyelowo was in, he was approximately twenty years older than his character. Along with this, I thought that Oyelowo’s character made one of the most interesting transitions in film history. He went from a normal kid, to a rebellious and law-breaking young man, to a man that fought for what he believed was right in the most appropriate ways possible. His transition, in my opinion, was the highlight of the film. The music in this film was often fun and added to each scene. It made each scene more enjoyable and helped to add to the emotion that was meant to be portrayed in each particular scene. There are a number of scenes that are terribly uncomfortable and that were more than capable of making one cringe, but the film was supposed to make its audience feel that way; it made the film more real. I really did enjoy this film from start to finish and, again, while the film was long and the story moved a bit slower than I would have liked, I thought that with everything that happened over the course of two hours and twelve minutes, it was paced appropriately and that everything came together very well in the end.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1327773/?ref_=nv_sr_1


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